HUMAN Rights Foundation (HRF) has appealed to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to release jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

In an open letter to Sultan Muhammad V, HRF said: “Anwar’s criminal prosecution, from the beginning to the end, was riddled with bias, political influence and miscarriage of justice”.

The letter came after Sarawak Report published an article on May 31 alleging that Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, the lead public prosecutor during the appeal against the acquittal of the PKR de facto leader, was paid RM 9.5 million from Prime Minister Najib Razak’s accounts. 

“These payments raise the question of Shafee’s independence, since in 2014, Najib’s administration had informed the public that Shafee received a mere RM1,000 token payment for leading the prosecution,” said HRF president and CEO Thor Halvorssen.

“These seriously questionable payments to Shafee from Najib, compounded with the fundamental lack of evidence in support of Anwar’s conviction, show that Anwar’s political opposition aimed to strip him of his political standing and damage his reputation permanently.”

HRF also said there was a lack of DNA evidence, inconsistency in the testimony of Anwar’s accuser and evidence tampering by a senior police officer in the case of Anwar’s sodomy accusation, which was criticised by international human rights organisations and foreign governments. 

“In 2015, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that there was ‘a violation of Anwar’s right to a fair trial, particularly the right to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal under article 10 of the (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)’.

“We respectfully urge Your Majesty to recognise the undeniable political meddling in Anwar’s case, order him to be released from prison, and clear him of his conviction,” said Halvorssen. – June 21, 2017.