Court dismisses Anwar’s application to remove remarks implying homosexual tendencies

PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court here dismissed an application by Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (pic) to expunge part of the remarks in the majority judgment delivered by the then Federal Court judge Justice Abdul Hamid Mohamad on Sept 2, 2004, which implied that he had homosexual tendencies.

Justice Tan Sri Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin who chaired the five-man panel unanimously rejected Anwar's review application on grounds that the majority judgment accepted that the sexual incident forming the crux of the change did in fact occur but were doubtful as to when it in fact took place.

Zulkefli said on Wednesday that the impugned part of the paragraph sought to be removed was in the majority decision of the Federal Court delivered more than nine years ago in allowing the applicant's (Anwar) appeal against his conviction and sentence for an offence of committing carnal intercourse against the order of nature under Section 377A of the Penal Code.

He said the applicant contended that the impugned part of the paragraph had grossly tarnished his reputation and continuously caused serious injustice and damaged his reputation as it had been constantly misused and abused, repeated and widely published as a jurisdiction to condemn him as a homosexual or sexual deviant to the public.

"We would like to state at the outset that we are mindful of the fact that our discretionary powers under Rule 137 of the Rules of the Federal Court 1995 should not be exercised liberally but sparingly, in very exceptional cases where a significant injustice had probably occured," he said.

Anwar was acquitted and discharged on Sept 2, 2004 from a charge of sodomising his family driver Azizan Abu Bakar at Tivoli Villa in Kuala Lumpur in 1994.