Anwar verdict sparks clashes and indignation
Anwar verdict sparks clashes and indignation
KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Malaysia's former finance minister
Anwar Ibrahim was sentenced to six years in jail for corruption
on Wednesday, triggering violent street protests by enraged
supporters and international indignation.
A defiant Anwar said the verdict "stinks to high heaven" and
vowed to appeal against the judgment that could keep him out of
public office until 2008.
"This is an absolute disgrace," the 51-year-old Anwar told the
High Court, saying Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had subverted
the judiciary and the police in a political plot.
Anwar was Mahathir's heir-apparent until last September when
tensions between the two reached breaking point and the prime
minister sacked his deputy.
Outraged Anwar supporters clashed repeatedly with security
forces, playing cat and mouse throughout the day in the first
anti-government street protests in five months.
Demonstrators threw stones and plastic bottles at riot police,
who responded repeatedly with water cannon laced with eye-
irritating chemicals and indelible yellow-green dye.
Protesters shouting anti-government slogans lit numerous
bonfires in the heart of the capital, throwing rubbish bins,
construction planks and newspaper into the flames.
Angry demonstrators broke the windows of a car belonging to
private television broadcaster TV3, accused by Anwar's supporters
of toeing the government's line.
Police said protesters broke windows in the courthouse and a
local police station, injuring a woman constable, as well as
windows of several police vehicles.
Riot police hit some protesters on the head and body with
batons, leaving several of them bleeding, witnesses said.
Human rights activist Tian Chua, one of the leaders of a new
party formed earlier this month by Anwar's wife, and opposition
figure Abdul Malek Husin were detained.
Anwar's wife fought back tears on Wednesday as she spoke of
her fractured family.
"My children are deprived of their father," Azizah Ismail told
reporters outside the courthouse where Anwar had just been
convicted of corruption.
"Our family is sad, our family is sad," she said, repeating
herself as she fought back tears, reading from a statement as
several of their six children stood by.
Goodbye
Azizah, an eye doctor who has become a politician in her own
right, pursed her lips and blinked furiously for several seconds
as her husband embraced her and bid her goodbye.
Shops, banks and offices near the High Court closed early.
Employees with handkerchiefs over their months scurried across
streets strewn with stones and empty mineral water bottles.
The protests tapered off in the early evening when police
rounded up 14 men at a mosque near the courthouse. Police said a
total 18 people were arrested.
The protests were among the most intense and widespread in the
capital since Anwar's arrest.
"The police have abused their power as there was no necessity
for them to use force," Teresa Kok of the opposition Democratic
Action Party said in a statement.
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told citizens to
accept the High Court judge's verdict and not to riot.
"So far the situation is under control," Kuala Lumpur police
chief Kamarudin Ali said in the evening.
Anwar was convicted on four corruption counts alleging he
directed police in 1997 to obtain retractions from two people who
had accused him of sex crimes.
High Court Judge Augustine Paul, explaining his 394-page
ruling, said Anwar had abused high political office and deserved
stiff punishment even though no money was involved.
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