IN A matter of a week, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) has cleared PKR president Anwar Ibrahim and his deputy Mohamed Azmin Ali of sexual misconduct charges due to a lack of evidence in both cases.

In Anwar’s case, the AGC said there was lack of evidence in the complaint that the politician attempted to outrage the modesty of his former aide a year ago, and could not proceed with charging anyone.

For Azmin, the authorities could not identify two men committing a sex act in bed, one said to be the PKR No 2, in a video clip circulated last year because the images were fuzzy. No charges again.

Meanwhile, the AGC has remained silent about prosecuting the complainant Haziq Aziz for lodging a false report in that sex video case.

In law, the AGC’s decisions appear sound because the evidence does not seem to clear the burden of proof required for a successful prosecution. But in the court of public opinion, the AGC has got some explaining to do as it involves politicians.

After all, such police investigations and prosecutions were used to kill political careers two decades ago. Then, the police and AGC were used as tools to eliminate political rivals.

As for Anwar and Azmin, their cases also smack of political spats spilling over from feuds and factionalism in their party.

In another time and world, such sex allegations would have scuppered their future – as Anwar found out twice in 1998 and 2008.

Perhaps one silver lining from the tale of the two video tapes is this: the authorities appear not to have any appetite or desire to settle political scores or referee disagreements best fought out in electoral contests.

This is a welcome change from 1998 when sex was first used to bring down a politician.

The same also seems to go for the audio recordings of Najib Razak’s telephone conversations.

Nothing can possibly come out of it. If anything, the audio clips expose more of the 1MDB cover-ups. That is as far as that goes.

Perhaps the police and AGC can finally work on more important issues that the criminal justice system needs to address?

How about getting to the bottom of the disappearances of Pastor Raymond Koh, activist Amri Che Mat, for starters?

Or about locating Prasana Diksa, or bringing to book the officers who shot dead three men in Rawang recently?

Those cases need resolution in a court of law, not politicians using sex to bring down each other. – January 14, 2020.