Almost everyone was shocked during the trial of Anwar regarding the Bersih issue this morning. All because of the presence of the lawyer who represented Anwar, Datuk Mohd Yusof Zainal Abidin, Malaysia’s former 2nd Solicitor, who also led the line of prosecutors in the case of Anwar’s sodomy trial against Saiful Bukhari. The situation is metaphorically like seeing Mahathir holding hands with Anwar, a day after he was sacked from his position as Deputy Prime Minister back in 1998.
Yusof officially resigned as the 2nd Solicitor a few days before Anwar was released from the charge of sodomizing Saiful Bukhari by Kuala Lumpur High Court in January 9, 2012.
Many thought that the reason why Anwar won the trial was because the Judge made a blunder in his judgement, and Yusof’s actions in this matter had caused the same doubt that perhaps the prosecution leader may have played a vital role in Anwar’s release.
How and how big is Yusof’s role, writer do not know. But writer is convinced that everyone want Yusuf to explain what is really happening. Besides, we are now talking about Yusuf being a prosecutor, not a solicitor, and somehow lawyers nowadays are surrounded with credibility and integrity issues.
Now we can understand why Anwar’s case was delayed for such a long time without any objections from the prosecutor’s team. We can now understand why were there various silly mistakes made in pushing Anwar to come up with witnesses’ alibis from the names that they had brought to the court by Karpal Singh as soon as Anwar was forced to defend himself.
The same thing went with the action of naming Deputy Public Prosecutor, Farah Azlina Latif as a part of the prosecutor’s team even though they knew that she had ‘issue’ with Saiful Bukhari. The matter of truth behind the ‘issue’ is not important, the important thing in this matter is the failure in understanding the problem which had caused the case to almost be disposed by the court.
And who should be responsible in this matter? Writer is certain that Yusof is, because as the prosecution leader, he is responsible in choosing the right deputy public prosecutor who could really help him to handle the case.
Writer is sure that all these failure somehow has played vital role in making the Judge to come out with the decision to release Anwar from the case against Saiful.
Yusof did not have to explain anything to the media (especially pro-opposition) like what he did just now. Yusof needs to answer to the rakyat because the whole time he was working in the Attorney General Chambers (AGC), he was paid by rakyat’s money.
This is not a small matter, this is a serious matter that involves AGC’s integrity as the only organization that has full power in deciding whether certain cases is qualified to be tried or not. The same thing goes to whether appeals can be brought to higher court or not.
We are worried of corruption or misuse of power that might have been involved in the matter. If it is true that Yusof was ‘bought’ when he was handling Anwar’s case, a re-trial should be held with a new line of prosecutors.
Perhaps one day, even the Attorney General might have to resign
