News reports on Anwar trial
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Sodomy II postponed to Oct 31
09 October 2008 – Malaysia Today
By Debra Chong
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 – Sessions court judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah has lifted the media gag on the contents of nine “exhibits” referred to by the defence team in Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy II hearing.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Datuk Yusof Zainal Abiden clarified that he had not asked the court to impose a total “gag order” on the media.
Instead, he had merely requested that the court instruct the press to temporarily refrain from revealing the information contained in documents referred to when Anwar filed his affidavit until the prosecution could submit their arguments.
When judge Komathy asked Yusof which documents he objected to, he said it was the newspaper reports from national news agency Bernama, local English daily New Straits Times and the International Herald Tribune.
The other documents were the two statements of claim filed by Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim who was the investigating officer handling Anwar’s trial 10 years ago, and who recently sued the opposition leader for defamation.
Yusof contended that the documents included statements that needed to be sworn in court first and were not admissible at this stage even if they were already available in the public realm.
The judge ruled in favour of admitting the exhibits.
Defence counsel Sulaiman Abdullah then asked Judge Komathy for a postponement of today’s hearing.
He said his client had to attend parliament from Monday onwards as he was the opposition leader and was only free on Fridays.
Judge Komathy then adjourned the hearing to 9am on Oct 31.
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