KL opposition leaders charged

KL opposition leaders charged

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Three more Malaysian opposition activists were charged on Wednesday with offenses committed during polling day in a by-election last November which the government lost.

Following Wednesday's hearing, eight charges of wrongful confinement and nine charges of rioting have been leveled against opposition activists who allegedly blocked busloads of government supporters from entering Lunas constituency last Nov. 29.

The opposition says they were "phantom voters" bussed in to vote fraudulently, a charge which the ruling coalition denies.

The National Justice Party (Keadilan), headed by the wife of jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, won a shock victory in Lunas, in the northern state of Kedah, in a bitter blow to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's National Front coalition.

On Wednesday Keadilan vice-president Tian Chua; party youth chief Mohamed Ezam Mohamed Noor; and party state assembly member Mohamed Azmin were charged with "wrongfully confining" five bus drivers and two passengers on polling day.