Malaysian police increased their presence around a courthouse yesterday as a hearing
to determine if opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim will be imprisoned entered a seventh day.
Anti-riot vehicles lined up along a road leading to the Federal Court as supporters of the former deputy prime minister gathered outside the building in the administrative capital of Putrajaya. A panel of five judges will decide on Mr Anwar's appeal after his 2012 acquittal on a sodomy chare was overturned in March. He faces five year jail term if is rejected.
The hearing, which started on Oct 28, was originally scheduled for two days. Police set up cordons and closed off some roads yesterday to prevent vehicles from nearing the court building. The case is the second Mr Anwar,67,has faced involving sodomy, which is illegal in Muslim-majority Malaysia and carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The threat of jail has added to the strains Mr Anwar faces in holding together an ideoloically varied coalition known as the People's Alliance. The group's biggest shared goal has been to unseat a ruling coalition in office since independence in 1957, even as members disagree among themselves on everything fron its agenda to the implementation of Islamic law.
Mr Anwar was cleared on January 2012 after the Kuala Lumpur High Court judge ruled there was no evidence to corroborate claims made by a former aide of a sexual encounter in 2008. BLOOMBERG