July 18, 2000

2.30pm TUES: High court judge Arifin Jaka today tentatively set the date for decision in the sodomy trial of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to August 4.

"Please be assured that it (the judgement) will be based on the evidence as I find it and nothing else. I fix (the date) the decision on Aug 4 tentatively," Ariffin said after Gobind Deo, counsel for Sukma, ended his summing up to the prosecution's reply-in-submission.

Anwar later told reporters that, "My team, the counsel, did their best and based on their evidence, the alibi, they (the prosecution) have no case."

However, he added that he was not too optimistic about the outcome.

Earlier in the morning, he told the court that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the maestro himself directing the police and prosecution to have him (Anwar) charged and convicted.

Continuing his summing up from the dock, Anwar claimed that there was adequate motive to get him dismissed, charged and convicted with political and economic issues involved.

"(There is) the fabrication of evidence and the prosecution relying solely on the testimony of Azizan (Abu Bakar) with no corroboration despite the earlier assurance by the Attorney-General they had monitored my movements from 1992 to 1998," Anwar told the sodomy hearing.

Arifin yesterday had allowed Anwar to do the summing up, after giving lead defence counsel Christopher Fernando the choice of either himself or Anwar - not both - to do the summing up following the prosecution's reply-to-submission last week.

Anwar is on trial for sodomising his wife's former driver Azizan Abu Bakar, together with his Indonesian adopted brother Sukma Dermawan Sasmitaat Madja, at Sukma's apartment in Tivoli Villas, Bangsar on "one night at 7.45pm, between January and March, 1993".

Anwar, again speaking from the dock, today claimed that the prosecution had not adduced any evidence that he was ever seen in the Tivoli Villas apartment, not even at the gate or vicinity by the guards.