Malaysia's Anwar says police beat him on arrest
Malaysia's Anwar says police beat him on arrest
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Sacked cabinet minister Anwar Ibrahim on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to corruption and sodomy and said Malaysian police beat him unconscious after he was arrested.
Anwar, in his first public appearance since being arrested on Sept. 20, was indicted in the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court on five counts of corruption and four of sodomy.
One eye swollen, the former deputy prime minister who was sacked from the cabinet on Sept. 2 pleaded not guilty to the nine counts.
He told the judge that on the night of his arrest he was punched until he bled, then denied medical attention for five days.
"I was asked to stand up and I was boxed very hard on the left part of the temple and the right part of the head," lawyer Pawanchik Marican quoted Anwar as telling the court.
"I was hit very hard also on the left part of the neck. I was then slapped very hard, left and right, until blood seeped from my nose and my lips," Pawanchik, speaking to reporters outside the court room, quoted Anwar as saying.
Police spokesmen could not be reached for comment.
Pawanchik said lawyers saw Anwar on Tuesday for the first time since his arrest, and that he looked "all right" except for a black eye.
"I'm very surprised it has happened to a deputy prime minister and they do this thing to him," Kamar Ainiah, one of seven lawyers representing Anwar, told reporters.
Authorities said Anwar would be charged on a fifth count of sodomy on Wednesday. The sodomy charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in jail and whipping, said a lawyer who did not know the maximum punishment under the corruption statute.
Anwar denies all the charges and says he is the victim of a conspiracy to end his political career and prevent him from exposing corruption in the government.
Two men who were recently convicted of being sodomized by Anwar have decided to retract their guilty pleas and appeal against the conviction, lawyers said on Tuesday.
The lawyers, who asked not to be identified, said Sukma Dermawan and Munawar Anees no longer stood by their guilty pleas and had appealed to the High Court to throw out their convictions and jail sentences.
Meanwhile, Malaysia's opposition leader called on Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to answer his former deputy's accusation that he was badly beaten by police while under arrest.
Lim Kit Siang, head of the Democratic Action Party, called on Mahathir to make a full ministerial statement in parliament on Wednesday.
"When Anwar Ibrahim was produced in court, it should (have been) a day of vindication of the rule of law but it has turned to be a day of shame for the rule of law in Malaysia," Lim said in a statement.
The opposition leader said Mahathir and federal police chief Abdul Rahim Noor owed to Anwar's family and the world "a full explanation as to why the former deputy prime minister was brutally attacked like a common criminal while in the custody of the police".
Rights -- Page 12