(AFP) A lawyer for jailed dissident politician Anwar Ibrahim will face trial for sedition in October after voicing suspicions in court about a plot to poison his client, the Kuala Lumpur High Court decided today.

Karpal Singh, who is also deputy chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP), was charged in January last year over his remarks during Anwar's sodomy trial.

Karpal had told the court that traces of arsenic had been found in Anwar's blood and he suspected that "people in high places" may have been trying to poison him.

The government ridiculed the poisoning claim. An independent medical inquiry later found Anwar was not suffering from acute arsenic poisoning at the time its tests were conducted.

Karpal today urged the government to drop the charge, which is punishable by up to three years' jail, saying it was unprecedented to penalise a lawyer for remarks made while defending a client.

"It is a very serious matter. They should not have charged me because there's no basis to the charge," Karpal told reporters outside the court.

"If you go by precedent in the Commonwealth, no one has ever been charged for the simple reason that all the time there is immunity as far as lawyers are concerned in the discharge of their duties in court."

Observers

Karpal was among five opposition figures arrested and freed on bail in January last year in a move which attracted widespread criticism.

Speaking to reporters after justice Augustine Paul fixed October 16-31 for the trial, Karpal said five international groups had indicated they would send observers.

They are Lawyers Rights Watch Canada, Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Bar Association and the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales.

DAP chairman Lim Kit Siang urged prosecutors to withdraw the charge to "bring about a more conducive atmosphere for the restoration of public confidence in the independence of the judiciary.

"The prosecution of Karpal is an indictment of the system of justice in Malaysia, that there is no just rule of law," Lim said.

Anwar, who was sacked and detained in September 1998, was convicted in April 1999 of abuse of power and jailed for six years. In August last year he was separately convicted of sodomy and jailed for another nine years.

Anwar says he was framed to remove a political threat to veteran Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, an allegation denied by the government.