Police may show CCTV of Anwar questioning

KUALA LUMPUR, July 24 — The charges and counter-charges surrounding the sodomy investigation against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim are going to get more intense — and interesting.

The Malaysian Insider understands that the police are considering making public close-circuit television footage to show the treatment given to the Opposition leader when he was in detention at the KL police headquarters.

This move — the first time it has been done in recent history — could happen within the next 48 hours and is aimed at challenging the position put forward by Anwar that he was treated badly during his overnight detention on July 16. It is also part of an attempt by the administration to appease critics who have been calling for more transparency in the police investigations into the sodomy charge against the former deputy prime minister.

His former aide, Saiful Bukhari Azlan, lodged a police report on June 28 alleging that he was sodomised by Anwar on June 26 in a condominium in Damansara. The Opposition icon was arrested outside his home in Segambut and heavily escorted to the KL police headquarters.

He alleged that he was treated like a major criminal and had to sleep on the cement floor, relying on a towel his wife brought as a mattress.

Police investigators have defended their actions, saying that certain rules were bent to allow him to have complete access to his lawyers and family members.

They also noted that every attempt was made to ensure that there was no repeat of 1998. Ten years ago, Anwar was arrested under the Internal Security Act after leading a demonstration following his sacking from government by the then-Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

He was severely assaulted by the then-Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Rahim Noor while in detention.

This time, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has gone on record to say that there will be no repeat of 1998. But this has not stopped charges and counter-charges being flung between Anwar and government agencies.

The Opposition politician said that he was stripped naked and had his private parts measured and checked during a medical check-up at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.

The hospital authorities denied this assertion in a statement. But Anwar hit back, accusing the administrators of doing the public relations work of the ministers.

-TMI