For Mark Trowell, an experienced Australian criminal
lawyer, alleged sodomy victim Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan does not strike him as a
"normal" sexual assault victim.
The author of ‘The trial of Anwar Ibrahim, Sodomy II',
which has been on the bookshelves since last week, said it appeared Saiful loved
to hog the media limelight and he did not mind it - not at all like any other
sexual assault victim.
Trowell, who is also an observer for the
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and LawAsia in courts around the world, said it
was also not normal for a sexual assault victim
not to have a
bath for two days.
"I am made to understand that a Muslim,
after sexual intercourse, is required to have the ritual bath before he or she
can perform prayers. So, the question remains as to how Saiful did his
prayers.
"In my 25 years of experience in criminal law, I have never seen
someone not bathing for two days to preserve forensic evidence.
"On the
contrary, I feel the victim would want to quickly have a shower to remove the
perpetrator's body smell.
"In some cases of sexual abuse, the victims
would scrub their bodies until nearly wounding themselves, to remove the smell,"
said Trowell, who is a Queen's Counsel.
Familiar with Malaysian customs
The
senior lawyer, who provides reports for the IPU from the trials he observed, has
worked extensively both as defence counsel and prosecutor in
Australia.
Interestingly, Trowell did have some connection to Malaysia -
his father lived in Ipoh during the pre-Merdeka era and as such, the West
Australian lawyer is familiar with Malaysian customs.
His reports helped the IPU - the world organisation of
Parliaments - to take an informed stand on Anwar's Sodomy II
trial.
Trowell's 306-page book is published by Marshall Cavendish
Editions and was released at all major bookstores in Malaysia last
Wednesday.
The author has been observing Anwar's trial ever since the
Sodomy I case more than a decade ago, and the abuse of power case that was taken
up to the Federal Court in 2004.
Trowell said Saiful's ability to meet
then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and a top police officer at the
Concorde Hotel two days before the alleged sodomy incident added further
intrigue to the case.
"In Australia, it would take months to see a
minister and Saiful managed to see Najib with ease, after an earlier meeting
with him to try to get a scholarship," he said.
Affair with prosecutor
Trowell said
it was also preposterous for Saiful to have
had an
affair with junior prosecutor Farah Azlina Latif, as claimed by
Malaysia Today blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin.
"I checked with my
colleagues in the Commonwealth countries and none knew of any case where a
prosecutor had an affair with the victim. A prosecutor may have had an affair
with police personnel, and this has been common, but never with the victim," he
said.
"This also raises another question: shouldn't the case be thrown
out by the trial judge (Justice Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah) when the matter
surfaced?
"The fear is that although she is a junior prosecutor, she
could have discussed the case with him during their meetings."
Trowell said this would affected the trial since Saiful
(
far right) could have been coached to corroborate his evidence with
that of other prosecution witnesses through Farah Azlina, for she could have
known the statements of the other witnesses that were not provided to the
defence.
However, he added, to the credit of the Attorney-General's
Chambers, they removed Farah Azlina from the team as soon as the allegation
surfaced.
However, Trowell maintained, the judge should have dropped the
case altogether at that point.
"The question remains as to whether Saiful
truly did have an affair with her. I feel the judge was inclined to believe so,
despite not wanting to take action against the prosecution," he
said.
'Prosecution must be a
model litigant'
The twists and turns in the trial led him
to writing the book, which Trowell described as "not a political commentary but
a case study" to provide legal insights into a highly-charged case.
In
any court case, Trowell said, the prosecution should be seen as "a model
litigant", where it must conduct the trial fairly and transparently.
In Australia, documents on a case are given to the defence,
regardless of whether these are in the favour of the defence or not.
"All
of these are given by the prosecution. There is no question of withholding back
anything. That is why case management is important to ensure the smooth running
of a trial.
"As you can see in Anwar's sodomy trial, some of the
documents such as the witness list were not provided to the defence, despite
justice Zabidin initially ordering so.
"That is why the trial took two
years. In Australia, such a trial will not take that long. Usually four to seven
weeks, at most," he said.
Trowell's book has a foreword by retired
Australian High Court judge Michael Kirby, who commented that the book is "well
written and a readable account of extraordinary events that are of significance
to Malaysia, its laws and politics".
No comments:
Post a Comment