a) A friend of Anwar Ibrahim, Dato' Nallakaruppan, was arrested on 31 July 1998, held incommunicado for 14 days and then charged in Court on 12 August 1998 for illegal possession of bullets at his house (although he has a gun licence). Initially, he was charged under the Firearms Act which carried penalties of fine and/or jail and which was bailable. However shortly after, the charges against him were withdrawn and he was recharged for the same offence under the Internal Security Act, 1960 which carried a mandatory death sentence and for which there was no bail.

b) Nallakaruppan was then remanded in Sungei Buluh Prison near K.L pending his trial. Suddenly police officers moved him in a unprecedented manner to solitary confinement in Bukit Aman ( Police Headquarters ). Initially the police even denied his lawyers access. Finally they secured access to him and then Nallakaruppan then filed an application in court that he was being unlawfully held in police custody when he should ge in the custody of the prison authorities and asked for his transfer back to prison. More significantly, he said in a 14 page affidavit sworn on 24 August 1998 that he was being subjected to mental and physical tort ' ure in order to sign false statements involving Anwar. He was subjected to threats such as he would hang under the ISA and things would happen to his wife.

c) The conduct of the hearing of this application by the High Court judge on 3 September 1998 ( the day after Anwar is sacked as Deputy Prime Minister ) exposes the conspiracy against Anwar further. On 2 September 1998, the Prosecutors filed several affidavits in reply to Nalla's earlier affidavit. Significantly, all the police could say in reply to Nalla's detailed complaints of abuse to him and pressure to sign false statements was a one paragraph bare denial. Normally such a bare denial would not have any credibility in a court.

d) The Prosecutors also filed a long affidavit by a senior police officer making a litany of scurrilous and defamatory allegations against Anwar ranging from sexual misconduct to corruption and treason against the country. The statements in this police afidavit were all hearsay and even double-hearsay without even the sources being named. Such evidence would not be admissible even in a civil case and certainly not legally admissible in a criminal matter. The purpose of this scurrilous affidavit was soon revealed.

e) It was then found that the Attorney General's Chambers had forwarded the affidavits to the press at the same time they we-re filed in court and even before they were given to Nalla's lawyers. First Nalla's lawyers asked for an adjournment ( which would have been only to Nalla's detriment as he would be kept longer in police custody in Bukit Aman ) so that Nalla could file an affidavit in reply. The High Court judge REFUSED this request and ordered them to proceed. They then told the High Court judge ( Datul Wahab Patail, elder brother to the leader of the team prosecuting Anwar now ) that he should stop publication of the affidavits since they were not even read in court and they were clearly intended for the purpose of character- assassination of Anwar in through the media. They then asked the Judge to issue an interim order to stop publication until full arguments could be heard on the issue, otherwise it would be futile if he decided to stop publication later. He refused, and needless to say he ruled later that the affidavits could be published since they were "public documents". The Mahathir-controlled media ran special editions with full texts of the defamatory affidavits. Nalla then issued a statement later denying the contents of the police affidavit but this statement was never published.

f) The Judge then went on to rule that the police could continue to detain Nalla in Bukit Aman. Most shockingly, he never dealt with the most ii-nportant question Nalla raised - that he was being subjected to duress to sign false statements. The Judge said nothing significant about this.

g) These events expose the fact that the police were actively seeking in August to force false statements implicating Anwar in order to justify action by the Prime Minister. It is also clear that the Attorney-General was part of this conspiracy and the Judiciary were prepared to lend its assistance to this illegal exercise by the police and to bend to the whims of the executive