Karpal's Greatest Service?

Article credit to "http://syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.com/"

This is from The Star today :

Anwar's defence a bare denial  :  He failed to cast doubt on sodomy charge, say Appeal judges

• Court of Appeal sentenced Anwar five years, his defence merely a bare denial.
• ruled Anwar merely gave a denial in a statement from the dock 
• Anwar was charged with sodomising Saiful .. on June 26, 2008. 
• 85-page written judgment said Anwar  failed to cast any doubt on the charge. 
• “..credible defence is one that answers the evidence... 
• .. imperative respondent explains his case. 
• incumbent to adduce evidence which can answer the allegations in the charge
• Anwar did not even deny he was at the scene of the crime 
• Anwar also did not dispute fact Saiful brought envelope to him 
• stressed that Anwar had given notice of alibi and listed 14 witnesses but never pursued for reasons only best known to him. 
• ***..pertinent to note alibi represents a complete defence to exculpate respondent***

• On two expert witnesses – David Lawrence Wells and Brian Leslie McDonald – called to contradict and rebut the prosecution’s expert witnesses, they held that their evidence were mere opinions as opposed to the evidence of two government chemists, which were factual and based on their own analyses of the samples.
• “Both Wells and McDonald are mere ‘armchair experts’”
• government chemists had testified in detail and reasons for conclusions

This is the brief report in The Star today about the Court of Appeal finding Anwar guilty of the sodomy charge.

First a disclaimer - for those of you pro sodomy people out there, dont get me wrong. You can sodomise whoever you want. I dont care. You can sodomise each other, you can sodomise camels, goats, you can sodomise the tail pipe of the KL Rapid bus - yo man I really dont care.  Ok? Now with that out of the way lets discuss some.

Do note that Anwar's lawyer was Karpal Singh. The entire defence strategy adopted was 'NO DEFENSE'. 

Before the trial started Anwar's team said they had more than a dozen alibis who would testify that they were with Anwar at the material time. Then they listed 14 alibis. And guess what - one of the alibis was his wife Wan Azizah. 

But all of a sudden they just dropped the defence of alibi like a hot potato. None of the 14 alibis were called. Not even his wife. A strong alibi would have completely destroyed the Prosecution's case.

In his submissions, prosecutor Tan Sri Shafee Abdullah said "The (alibi) defence is not bona fide. The defence was raised dishonestly; when they were confronted with evidence of videos, CCTVs (of Anwar being at the scene), they dropped the entire defence (of the alibi).”

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2014/03/06/appeal-against-anwars-acquittal-begins/

This is very serious.  The defence was raised dishonestly

Karpal Singh was Anwar's lawyer. Would Karpal have raised a dishonest defence? I dont think so. I think Karpal was always a stickler for facts. It must have been Anwar's own insistence to put up such a stupid defense strategy. 

(If you read my previous writings about Anwar, I have always maintained that the brader really sucked at strategy. The guy really has no brains.)

But what did Karpal say when his client Anwar insisted on putting up and then dropping the alibi strategy? Surely the Court would take note. And the Court has taken note. This is where Anwar nailed his coffin shut.

The other point that has been carefully noted by the Court was that Anwar decided to give a statement from the dock. He simply REFUSED to be cross examined.  

Why would the hero of the backdoor entry, the pemimpin Islam, the founder of ABIM refuse to be cross examined in open Court when CNN, CNBC, Fox News, Bill Cohen, Mallot, Soros and all his foreign friends could  all be there to support him and broadcast his brave rebuttals for the whole world to listen?

Werent you, dear moron Anwar Ibrahim supporter, waiting for your hero to be cross examined in open court and listen to him thrashing all the charges against him? Well how come your back door hero decided to chicken out and just read a statement from the dock? 

He did not want to be cross examined in open court. And now this chickening out has also been noted by the Court of Appeal to assist them arrive at their guilty verdict.  The Court said :   

i.  imperative respondent explains his case.. 

ii. credible defence is one that answers the evidence...

So how come he chose NOT to answer any of the evidence? He did not explain his case. Karpal was Anwar's lawyer. So was it Karpal's idea that Anwar NOT answer the evidence against him? Or was it Anwar's own insistence? Who was the idiot in the team?

Anwar has now taken his case to the Federal Court (for a final appeal). Talk is the Prosecution may ask that Anwar's guilty conviction be affirmed and the sentence be extended. Anwar has to ponder this. What if the Federal Court affirms his conviction and then extends his jail term?

The Court of Appeal has also strongly criticised the trial judge for making serious mistakes.

• trial judge had fallen into serious error 
• finding of trial judge seriously flawed and merits our intervention
• reception by judge of expert evidence is not objective and is one sided
• serious error, falls far short of proper approach that a judge should take when judicially appreciating evidence

If there were so many flaws, shouldnt the trial judge be investigated? The Judiciary should have some type of mechanism to conduct internal inquiries. 

In conclusion the defense strategy of Anwar Ibrahim's latest sodomy trial was actually NO DEFENSE.

He did not even explain his case in Court.

They did not rebut any of the evidence presented.

The chicken fellow refused to be cross examined. He read a prepared statement instead.

They did not call any of their 14 alibi witnesses. 

Their DNA experts did not rebut any of the DNA evidence

So who in Anwar's team was behind such a disastrous defence strategy? This strategy was totally stupid and suicidal from the beginning.

Thank you Mr Karpal Singh.