The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) political coalition yesterday denounced what it called a government bid to extend the prison term of the opposition’s patriarch Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim following the reversal of his sodomy acquittal.
Anwar was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment last month after the Court of Appeals overturned a 2012 acquittal on sodomy charges against him, sharges that Anwar has said were a false smear campaign by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government aimed at disqualifying him from running for public office.
Anwar is currently free pending an appeal to the Federal Court.
Karpal Singh, Anwar’s attorney and a DAP leader who is no stranger to legal woes himself, told the AFP he received new court documents that indicate prosecutors will push to increase Anwar’s sentence to an unspecified level.
“As Anwar is too old for whipping, they must feel five years is too light,” said Karpal.
In a statement Monday, N. Surendran, a PKR vice president, called the case “a frontal assault” on democracy, denouncing the bid for a increased sentence as “selective, vicious and politically motivated”.
Story: Channel News Asia
