PKR has accused Utusan Malaysia of intentionally misinterpreting the Sodomy II judgment by claiming that Anwar Ibrahim was acquitted due to a technicality.

In a press release today, PKR vice-president N Surendran said Utusan had ignored the fact that Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Zabidin Mohd Diah was not convinced by the complainant Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan’s testimony.

NONE Surendran ( left ), who is also a practising lawyer, said Zabidin’s written judgement had said that the court could not rely on uncorroborated evidence presented by Saiful.

“What this means is that Saiful’s evidence was simply not reliable enough to convict the opposition leader.

“As a matter of law, if the judge had found Saiful’s evidence reliable, he could have convicted Anwar without seeking for further corroborative evidence.

“In short, the judge did not acquit on a technicality, but because he was not convinced that Anwar was guilty,” he said.

‘Evidence of tampering’

Surendran speculated that Utusan was motivated both by ignorance of the judge’s reasoning and malice against Anwar.

“Further, Utusan deliberately ignored crucial findings by the judge which showed that the police had tampered with the evidence.

“The judge found that the evidence plastic bag (P27) was cut open by the investigating officer and that the seals were not tamper-proof, which indicates fabrication of evidence against Anwar,” he said.

Surendran said that the court’s findings ultimately proved that the sodomy charges were part of a vicious political conspiracy against Anwar.

In an editorial yesterday, Utusan alleged that Anwar had got off on a technicality because the court refused to accept the DNA evidence.

“The judgement gave a clear message that Anwar escaped punishment because of technicalities, but the core issue was penetration did take place,” wrote Awang Selamat in the the Bisik-bisik column.