Preliminary talks held on Malay unity summit

Preliminary talks held on Malay unity summit

KUALA LUMPUR (AP); Officials from Malaysia's ruling party and its largest opposition group met on Thursday for the first time in 15 years for preliminary talks on how to bridge rifts between ethnic Muslim Malays, the country's largest and predominant community.

Representatives from Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's United Malays National Organization and the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, PAS, met for four hours to try to set an agenda for possible future talks between party leaders.

Officials who left the meeting did not announce its outcome, but PAS Secretary-general Nasharuddin Mat Isa said there was "positive hope" for future talks, which could include Mahathir.

UMNO has cautiously been courting PAS since it made significant gains into the Malay Muslim vote, Mahathir's traditional powerbase, in elections in 1999, forcing the prime minister to rely on the support of non-Malay parties in the governing coalition to retain two-thirds majority support in Parliament.

Nasharuddin and Khalil Yaakob, who led the UMNO delegation, fronted news media after Thursday's meeting, smiling and posing together for photographers.

But both men ignored reporters' questions about whether future talks would cover issues such as corruption, judicial independence, human rights and police brutality, which PAS has earlier demanded be on the agenda.

Support for Mahathir among ethnic Malay Muslims has waned partly out of sympathy for Anwar Ibrahim, who was sacked as deputy premier in 1998 and is now serving 15 years in prison after being convicted of corruption and sodomy charges he insists resulted from a political conspiracy.

In the 1999 elections, PAS won control of two of Malaysia's 13 states, tripled its seats in Parliament and made inroads in several Malay-dominated provinces.

Mahathir blamed the gains on PAS' Muslim agenda and accused it of abusing Islam to woo political support. PAS said the government's treatment of Anwar and alleged rampant corruption caused Malays to shun UMNO.

Delegations from both parties last met in 1985 to prepare for a debate on Islam and Malay rights. The debate was called off after Malaysia's Malay ruler intervened, saying it would threaten the country's security.

On Thursday, Anwar accused two senior Malaysian prison officials of illegally searching his hospital room and stealing important legal and medical files, his lawyer said on Thursday.

The ousted deputy premier claimed that authorities raided his room at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital without his knowledge on Dec. 20 while he was at another facility for a medical scan, attorney Sankara Nair said.

In a two-page, handwritten police report obtained by The Associated Press, Anwar said that when he returned to his room, his wife's cellphone and several classified medical documents were gone.

Also allegedly missing were Anwar's private notes on his appeal to the Federal Court, Malaysia's highest court, against his conviction and six-year prison sentence for corruption.