Anwar wants board to review decision on royal pardon

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (pic) is trying to get the Pardons Board to review its decision not to grant him a royal pardon.

The application for leave to initiate the judicial review proceedings will be heard on March 28.

Justice Nor Bee Ariffin is the new judge assigned to hear his application at the High Court here.

Speaking to reporters here after case management yesterday, Senior Federal Counsel Suzana Atan said Justice Nor Bee would hear the application because the previous trial judge assigned to hear the matter had recused herself.

“We have filed our documents for the hearing,” she said.

Anwar’s lawyer Melissa Sasidaran confirmed the details.

Anwar, 68, is now serving his jail term in Sungai Buloh Prison for sodomy.

In June last year, Anwar, his wife Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and their two daughters filed the application for leave to quash the board’s decision to deny the family’s petition for his pardon.

They are also seeking an order to compel the board to have a meeting to consider the petition and tender appropriate advice to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

Alternatively, they are asking for an order to compel the board to advise the King to pardon and release him.

In their application for leave, they named the Federal Territories Pardons Board, the Attorney-General and the Government as respondents.

On Feb 24 last year, Dr Wan Azizah and her daughters Nurul Izzah and Nurul Nuha submitted a petition to the King for a royal pardon on the five-year jail sentence imposed on Anwar after he was found guilty of having sodomised his former personal aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan in 2008.

On March 27 last year, the Attorney-General’s Chambers informed the family that the board decided not to grant him a pardon.