ARREST AND FIRST TRIAL ANWAR IBRAHIM
After the Asian economic crisis in 1997-98, Anwar Ibrahim. then Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, and Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir had a falling out over how the country should deal with the crisis. Anwar, had been Mahathir's anointed successor. On September 20, 1998, Anwar was arrested after leading an anti-government demonstration with 30,000 people and charged with sodomy and corruption. Mahathir said, "I cannot accept a man who is a sodomist to become the leader of this country."
Shortly after he was arrested, Anwar showed up at court with a black eye and bruises. This caught the attention of the international media and all of a sudden the Anwar story was front page news. Anwar said that he was arrested by police in ski masks who broke into his home and handcuffed and blindfolded him and taken to a police station, where he was beaten until he fell unconscious. Anwar sustained a serious back injury during the beating and showed up at court in neck brace. In February, police chief Abdul Rahim Noor admitted punching and slapping Anwar during questioning.
The trial was the longest on Malaysian history. In what was dubbed as Malaysia's "Trial of the Century," Anwar was accused of committing sodomy and portrayed as being a promiscuous bisexual. He denied the charges and pleaded innocent. Rumors about Anwar’s sex life had been circulating for years. Publicly humiliating someone in Malaysian culture is considered unforgivable bad manners. For many Malaysians, Mahathir’s dragging Anwar's name through the mud was considered the ultimate violation of Malaysia ethics.
Ian Buruma wrote in The New Yorker, Anwar “was charged with corruption, and with sodomising his speechwriter and his wife’s chauffeur, and convicted. Under Malaysian law, “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” carries a sentence of up to 20 years. Anwar denied everything and took to the road, addressing crowds all over the country. When he was barred from speaking in halls, he spoke in mosques or parking lots, standing on top of trucks or cars. “The government is trying to keep the people away from me,” he declared. “I am not afraid. No matter what happens, whether in prison . . . I will still strive, I will still fight, I will not step down.” While awaiting trial, Anwar...says that attempts were made to poison him...The 1998 trial was a humiliating spectacle, with elements of dark comedy: a mattress with semen stains produced as evidence in court; police claims that Anwar had beaten himself up by pressing a glass onto his own face. [Source: Ian Buruma,The New Yorker, May 19, 2009 ]
After his arrest, Anwar said that Dr. Mahathir gave a slideshow to his cabinet colleagues to justify purging his former heir apparent," The presentation included photographs of current and former U.S. officials, including Robert Rubin, William Cohen, Paul Wolfowitz, and World Bank president James Wolfensohn. "These are the people behind Anwar," Dr. Mahathir explained. Dr. Mahathir denies showing any pictures, but admits, "I informed the cabinet about Anwar's associates." ) The implication was clear: Dr. Mahathir has stated that he believes “Jews rule this world by proxy.” At the Hilton, Anwar — who started his career as president of the Malaysian Muslim Students Union and is a devout Muslim — shrugged. "They say I'm a Jewish agent because of my friendship with Paul," he said. "They also accuse me of being a lackey of the Chinese."
Corruption and Sodomy Charges and Flimsy Evidence Against Anwar
The corruption charges against Anwar stemmed from alleged attempt by Anwar to tell police to obtain retractions from two people who had accused him of sex crimes. One of the policeman who had allegedly been coerced had written earlier that charges against Anwar were "baseless" and "made of mere belief and suspicion" by a "a certain group" with their own agenda. He also said the he might lie under oath if Mahathir told him to.
Anwar and his brother Sukma Darmawan were charged with having homosexual sex with Anwar’s former driver Azizan Abu Bakar. Anwar called the charges “trumped up.” After the charges were made Mahathir told the press. “They had not only performed anal intercourse, but during the process...I don’t know how you call it...he was masturbating the man.”
Bakar said Anwar forced him to commit homosexual acts against his will. He gave a sworn written statement that said he had been Anwar's "homosexual slave" and a "victim of homosexual acts by Anwar Ibrahim" several times and then testified in court that the statements were true and he observed Anwar on several occasion "wearing a wig."
The prosecution tried to be as lurid and graphic as possible in the presentation of evidence against Anwar. As part of the evidence that he indeed had sex, a mattress allegedly stained with Anwar’s semen was brought in as evidence. People in the courtroom saw a mattress with 13 pieces of clothe sniped off and taken to labs for DNA and blood testing. Parallels with Monica Lewinsky's stained dress were made. The mattress was later discredited as evidence.
The sexual misconduct charges were especially flimsy. Government prosecutors switched the dates of the supposed offense three times and the driver had been asked by police to testify to a new date. The first date change was blamed on a typographical error. The third was brought up after Anwar gave solid alibis for the previous two dates. He had an alibi for the third date switch too. In a tactic legal under Malaysian law the prosecution said the sexual event occurred “one night between the month of January an March 1993 at about 7:45.”
Anwar’s adopted brother initially implicated Anwar in the sex scandal but then later said that the police had forced him to lie about the affair. He said the police had threatened him with a 20 year prison sentence if he didn’t cooperate. Anwar's former private secretary testified that he was detained by police, stripped naked and told to say that he had been sodomized by Anwar. "They also wanted me to say that he is a sodomist, womanizer and corrupt...That’s all rubbish." Two other accusers recanted their confessions.
Anwar Ibrahim in Prison
In April 1999, Anwar was found guilty of four corruption charges and sentenced to six years in prison for corruption. Each of the corruption charges that had been brought against him carried a maximum 14-year jail term which could have been added for a total of 56 years. "I have been dealt a judgment that stinks to high heaven," Anwar said.
In August 2000, Anwar was found guilty of sodomy and sentenced to nine years in prison. The judge announced that Anwar committed “despicable acts” in our society” and deserved the “utmost condemnation.” Anwar’s brother Sukma Darmawan was also found guilt of sodomy and sentenced to six years in prison and four strokes with a cane.
Anwar was sentenced to serve the nine year sentence with the six year sentence, bringing the total to 15 years. After he was released he was restricted from political office for 5 years. The imprisonment was largely seem as the end of a promising political career. During part of his stay in jail Anwar was kept in solitary confinement and was allowed to see his wife only once a month. Once he was hospitalized with high arsenic levels and claimed he was poisoned.
While Anwar was in prison his wife Azizah kept the fire burning. She told the New York Times, "There are times when the stress is unbearable. I have to head this party. My husband is behind bars. I have children at home. But there is this tremendous, overwhelming support from the people, and I think, I can't let them down."
Ian Buruma wrote in The New Yorker, “Years of solitary confinement provided much time for thought. “Prison life is such that you have to impose a punishing discipline on yourself,” Anwar told me. “Otherwise, you become lethargic, or a psycho.” Deprived of books for the first six months, Anwar was eventually allowed to read Tocqueville, Shakespeare, Confucius, the Indian and Arabic classics. He also received a subscription to The New Yorker. But there were times when he would have given anything to hear a human voice, even to be scolded by a guard. Family visits were always brief. His children would sing old pop songs to him. Anwar looked wistfully out the window as he sang the first bars of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” The experience seems to have made him a humbler man. In an interview given three months after his release from prison, he told writer Eddin Khoo, “To be frank and honest, I cannot absolve myself entirely of the excesses of (Dr Mahathir’s) administration. There were some things that were beyond our control, other things we simply did not have the courage to address at that time.” [Source: Ian Buruma, The New Yorker, May 19, 2009]
Anwar Released from Prison
In September 2004, Anwar was released from prison after spending six years there when his sodomy charge was overturned on appeal and his corruption sentence had expired. Because of his back problem he was taken out of the prison in a wheelchair. A few weeks after his release he flew to Munich for surgery on his back for injuries he claims he sustained while in detention. Around the same time Anwar announced that he was going to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca and said he was not interested in rejoining the ruling UMNO party.
The high court ruling came within a year of Mahathir retiring in 2003. Malaysia’s highest court threw out the sodomy charges against him but not the corruption charges. Anwar denied all the charges, saying they were contrived to end his career after he led anti-government protests after falling out with Mahathir Mohamad, the then prime minister, over Mahathir's handling of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. After his release, Anwar said, “"It's been a terrible time. It's been almost nine years, so at last I have freedom." The corruption conviction means he cannot hold a public post until 2008 although he has been named special adviser to the opposition People's Justice Party that Anwar's wife started when he was in jail.
On changes to Anwar after his arrest in late 1990s, Ian Buruma wrote in The New Yorker, “Almost up to the time of his arrest he was still regarded as a rather arrogant UMNO man. I tried to picture the haughty technocrat as he smiled at me in his daughter’s sparsely furnished office at the PKR headquarters. All I saw was a charmer, whose fine dark hair, snappy spectacles, and black goatee gave him the air of a jazz-loving hipster of the 1950s. Even at his own party headquarters, he spoke softly, sometimes in a whisper, aware that anything he said was likely to be overheard. A retired Indian civil servant told me about hearing Anwar speak in the district contested by his daughter in 2008. It was near midnight and pouring down rain, yet more than 1,000 people waited until Anwar arrived, on the back of a motorcycle, drenched. When he spoke, the crowd fell silent, listening to every word. Then, suddenly, a number of Indians began to shout, in Tamil, “Makkal Sakti!” “” “People Power! People Power!” And the Malays and Chinese repeated it after them, louder and louder “” an unusual demonstration of multi-ethnic solidarity. [Source: Ian Buruma, The New Yorker, May 19, 2009]
More Court Cases Involving Anwar
In November 2006, Malaysian prosecutors dropped a sodomy charge against Sukma Darmawan, the adopted brother of Anwar Ibrahim. Al-Jazeera reported that Sukma “was to have stood trial for a second time, charged with ‘allowing’ Anwar to sodomise him, but the judge acquitted and discharged him after the prosecutor told the court there was no evidence to support the charge.” Sukma had been jailed in 1998 after a confession he said was coerced through sexual abuse and threats, which prosecutors later used to convict Anwar. The charge was dropped partly due to the case’s age and Sukma’s prior imprisonment [Al-Jazeera, November 6, 2006].
In August 2005, Anwar won 4.5 million ringgit ($1.2 million) in libel damages from Khalid Jafri, author of 50 Reasons Why Anwar Ibrahim Cannot Become Prime Minister. Associated Press reported that the book, circulated in 1998, accused Anwar of sexual misconduct and contributed to his dismissal as deputy prime minister. High Court Judge Hishamuddin Yunus ruled it was a “vicious and venomous public attack,” noting evidence that Khalid had been paid by Anwar’s political enemies. Anwar said the money was “never an issue” and that he was “vindicated completely” [AP, August 19, 2005].
In November 2010, Malaysia’s highest court rejected Anwar’s final attempt to sue former premier Mahathir Mohamad for defamation over claims he was gay. AFP reported that Anwar had sought nearly $30 million, arguing Mahathir’s statement was “false and malicious.” The Federal Court ruled the judge had discretion to use either Malay or English in the ruling and ordered Anwar to pay 70,000 ringgit ($22,320) in legal costs. Anwar’s counsel described the outcome as a “setback” and a deterrent to pursuing other defamation suits against ruling figures [AFP, November 23, 2010].
Anwar Arrested Again on Sodomy Charges in 2008
In the summer of 2008, Anwar Ibrahim was arrested on sodomy charges related to a male aide, Ian Buruma writing in The New Yorker noted that the arrest “made no difference to his popularity,” as the allegations were widely seen as politically motivated. Anwar was seized near his home by 20 commandos in balaclavas. The aide, reportedly under police protection, swore in a mosque that he was speaking the truth, though an imam later said he had been forced to witness the proceedings. The charge was later changed from “sexual assault” to “consensual sex against the order of nature” [The New Yorker, May 19, 2009].
Anwar described the arrest and overnight detention as a “vendetta” and criticized being treated like a “major criminal,” including a forced genital examination, which aggravated an old back injury. He also refused to provide a DNA sample, citing fabricated evidence used against him in a previous trial [AFP, June 18, 2008]. He called the allegations a conspiracy orchestrated by the government to undermine his opposition alliance, which had made historic gains in the March elections, winning a third of parliamentary seats and control of five states [AFP, June 30, 2008].
The alleged victim, 23-year-old Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, filed a police complaint two days after the incident. A medical report noted no signs of injury, leading some Malaysians to grow weary of the case’s graphic details [Thomas Fuller, New York Times, August 2, 2008]. Public opinion polls suggested strong skepticism of the allegations: a Merdeka Center survey found only 6% believed the charges, while a Malaysiakini poll showed 94.4% saw them as politically motivated. More than 7,000 people attended a rally in support of Anwar, chanting “Reformasi” and demanding political reform [Reuters, July 2008].
Anwar’s Second Sodomy Trial
In February 2010, Anwar Ibrahim went on trial for sodomy for the second time in a decade, seen as a major political challenge to Prime Minister Najib Razak. “These are the machinations of a dirty, corrupt few,” Anwar said as he entered court with his wife and two daughters. Bridget Welsh of Singapore Management University told Reuters: “The evidence will have to be overwhelming in order to move beyond the perception that Najib Razak is using the judiciary to remove a political rival” [Reuters, February 2, 2010].
During the trial, Saiful Bukhari Azlan testified that Anwar pressured him into sexual acts at a condominium. Judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah closed the court to the public after explicit testimony [Associated Press, February 4, 2010]. The case lasted nearly two years, relying on Saiful’s testimony and DNA samples said to match Anwar. The defense argued the claims were inconsistent and the DNA evidence mishandled.
In March 2011, the High Court ruled key DNA evidence—taken from Anwar’s toothbrush, towel, and water bottle—was illegally obtained, as he had not been informed it could be used against him. “The prosecution's case now hinges mainly on testimony by the aide that Anwar pressured him,” said Anwar’s lawyer, Sankara Nair [Associated Press, March 2011].
Sex, Lies and Videotape During Anwar’s Second Sodomy Trial
In May 2010, Associated Press reported that Anwar Ibrahim’s defense lawyers sought to have his sodomy trial thrown out, arguing that accuser Saiful Bukhari Azlan’s story was inconsistent and tainted with lies. Saiful testified that Anwar sodomised him without consent in a condominium, giving graphic details including the use of lubricant and vulgar language. Defense lawyer Karpal Singh noted discrepancies between Saiful’s statements and the formal charge of consensual sodomy, arguing that if Saiful lied, “his entire testimony would have to be deemed prejudiced and the case thrown out” [Sean Yoong, AP, May 11, 2010].
In March 2011, Mahathir Mohamad released a memoir alleging new sexual misconduct by Anwar, claiming that in 1998 two women said Anwar arranged to have sex with them. Mahathir also said Anwar admitted affairs but “declared that he had done nothing unusual” and justified his dismissal due to hypocrisy in “masquerading as a highly religious individual.” Anwar dismissed the claims as “a blatant lie” reflecting Mahathir’s “very vicious personal bitterness” [Julia Zappei, AP, March 8, 2011].
In April 2011, a sex tape allegedly featuring Anwar was uploaded to YouTube. The 1-minute-47-second excerpt showed a man resembling Anwar in a towel with another man and a woman on a bed. Anwar denied involvement, stating, “It wasn’t me” [Associated Press, April 2011]. The longer video reportedly showed sexual activity in a hotel “that offered sex services and spa facilities,” and while police said the tape was not doctored.
Anwar Acquitted Then Imprisoned Again for Sodomyl
Malaysia opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was initially acquitted of sodomy charges in January 2012, with the verdict delivered in just two minutes. Associated Press reporters Eileen Ng and Sean Yoong wrote that the acquittal was “good news not just for him. It is a court-sent gift for the very government he wants to topple,” as it avoided public outrage during an election year and bolstered Prime Minister Najib Razak’s claims of judicial independence. High Court Judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah ruled that the prosecution’s DNA evidence was insufficient to convict, stating he “could not with 100 percent certainty exclude the possibility that the (DNA) sample is not compromised” [AP, January 9, 2012].
The ruling sparked celebrations among opposition supporters, while Anwar described it as a result of government strategy to avoid international criticism. Government statements hailed it as proof of judicial independence, but Anwar remained skeptical. Political analysts called it a “win-win situation” for both sides, removing a contentious issue while allowing Anwar to focus on elections [AP, January 9, 2012].
In March 2014, the acquittal was overturned, and Anwar was sentenced to five years in prison. The appeals court ruled the high court had erred, blocking Anwar from contesting a seat in Selangor. Human rights groups condemned the verdict as politically motivated. Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch said: “This trial was all about knocking Anwar Ibrahim out of politics… It’s a dark day for the Malaysia judiciary” [AP, March 7, 2014].
In February 2015, Malaysia's highest court rejected an appeal by Anwar against the sodomy conviction, sending him back to prison for five years. "I will walk again for the third time into prison but rest assured that I will walk in with my head held high," a Anwar said in a statement he read out in court. "I maintain my innocence." Anwar remained in prison until he was pardoned in 2018.[Source: Trinna Leong and Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah, Reuters, February 10, 2015]
The conviction disqualified Anwar from political office and contesting the next election in held in 2018. In 2015 Anwar headed a three-party opposition alliance that made impressive gains in a 2013 general election, which for the first time raised the possibility of a genuine challenge for the coalition that has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957. Prime Minister Najib Razak's government rejected any suggestion of interference in the case. "Malaysia has an independent judiciary, and there have been many rulings against senior government figures," it said after the ruling.
In January 2014 Anwar was "puzzled and shocked" after being barred entry to Japan because of his 1999 conviction for sodomy and corruption. In August 2014, he rejected offers of asylum abroad ahead of appeal on sodomy conviction: In April 2017 Anwar suds government over his sodomy conviction
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated January 2026