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