Jailed former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim filed a bail application with the Federal Court today in a final bid for freedom ahead of an appeal hearing, his lawyer said.

Anwar, whose application for bail was turned down by the Appeal Court last week will now press his case in the highest court on the land, Sankara Nair told AFP.

Anwar has completed four years in jail on corruption charges and is seeking bail while awaiting the outcome of an appeal against his conviction for sodomy, for which he was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Nair said the Federal Court had not yet fixed a date to hear the sodomy appeal filed last year and Anwar was "determined to exhaust all legal avenues" for bail ahead of the hearing, he said.

Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad sacked the charismatic and popular Anwar in 1998 and he was later sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison on charges Anwar says were trumped up to prevent him from making a challenge for the premiership.

The United States considers Anwar a political prisoner and has condemned the Appeal Court's decision to deny him bail.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who took over from Mahathir last October, defended Malaysia's judiciary, saying most Malaysians believed the judges were independent.

Mockery

Anwar called Abdullah's claim a "blatant mockery of the truth" in a statement yesterday.

"(Abdullah) must stop paying lip service to efforts to establish the truth and start disbanding the apparatus that he had inherited from Dr Mahathirs regime which was calculated to speak lies and propaganda," Anwar said.

"To insist on saying that the judiciary is independent when all the facts are more to the contrary, leaves us with the only logical conclusion that he is a mere puppet on a string pulled by Dr Mahathir."

Anwar accused Abdullah of wanting to ensure that he remained in jail because this served the prime minister's political interests. - AFP