FAC News - Tuesday, March 26, 2002 10:26 PM

ANWAR IBRAHIM APPEAL HEARING, DAY 5

Anwar’s appeal hearing resumes after yesterday’s bomb “un-scare”

Today, the Anwar Ibrahim appeal hearing resumed in the Kuala Lumpur Federal Court after yesterday’s postponement due to a bomb scare that nobody seemed scared of. (Yesterday's report)

Yesterday, only a handful of the members of the public were allowed in. To ensure I would not be left standing outside, I arrived in front of the court before sunrise only to find 44 people ahead of me. They had arrived by bus all the way from Penang at around 5.00am.

Today is going to be another disappointing day, I thought to myself. I doubt more than ten would be allowed in. This would mean I would not get a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a seat in the spectators’ gallery.

Anyway, we still had two hours to go, so I thought I might as well wait. You never know, miracles do happen. And if they could convict Anwar based on no evidence and contradicting statements of witnesses, then the impossible can sometimes become possible.

“Do you know they received a phone call at 8.45am yesterday that there was a bomb in the building,” said one of the members of the public.

I have to use “members of the public” as no one wants to be quoted lest they be cited for Sedition, as would happen to anyone who makes a statement that could be regarded as “inciting hatred towards the government”.

“Is that so?” I asked.

“It was in the newspapers this morning,” he replied.

I would, of course, not know this as I do not read the local newspapers other than opposition publications for very obvious reasons.

“If they knew at 8.45am there was a bomb in the building, why did they allow all of us in at 9.00am plus bring Anwar in as well. Wouldn’t that have been risky if there really was a bomb? Unless, of course, they knew all along there was no bomb.”

“And the funny thing is,” volunteered another ‘member of the public’, “They only evacuated those of us in the courtroom. There must have been hundreds of other employees in the building, plus, maybe, another hundred or so police personnel. Why were they not also evacuated?”

Hmm. This made sense. I never thought of that. In fact, everyone was still walking around the building and loitering in the hallways while we were locked out of the building and not allowed in on the excuse they were still looking for the bomb.

“Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to seal the entire street, not just lock the gates with everyone else inside and us outside the building?”

Hmm. This guy sure has a point. I wonder how the government is going to respond to this latest – I hate to use this word as I know it will rile up the government – SANDIWARA (Malay for ‘stage show’, ‘play’ or ‘drama’).

Important reports and archive material related to Anwar Ibrahim's Appeal