Lawyers, rights activists and opposition parties today hailed the surprise release of former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim after nearly six years in prison as a political and legal turning point for Malaysia.

The Bar Council, which represents some 8,000 Malaysian lawyers, said the Federal Court's decision yesterday to uphold Anwar's last-chance appeal against his sodomy conviction showed that "Malaysian justice can be independent of politics."

"Anwar's case has for many years weighed heavily on the conscience of ordinary Malaysians," chairman Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari said in a statement.

"It is hoped that today will set the future direction for our judiciary to regain its independence and credibility."

Opposition Democratic Action Party leader Lim Kit Siang said Anwar's release marked a "watershed for the long and agonising struggle to restore national confidence in a truly independent judiciary and a just rule of law."

"It marked a major turning point and sends a very significant message to the world that Malaysia is becoming a normal country again where there is respect for the rule of law and that separation of powers is honored," Lim said.

Human rights group Suaram welcomed "the courageous judgment" which "rectified the glaring wrongs made in the past judgments by the High Court and the Court of Appeal."

End of bizarre political saga

Judge Abdul Hamid Mohamad, head of a three-judge bench of the Federal Court which reached its decision by a two-to-one majority, said the prosecution had failed to prove the case against Anwar beyond reasonable doubt.

The judge criticised the star witness, prosecutor and police in Anwar's High Court trial. He pointed to inconsistencies in the prosecution, including the fact that the date of the alleged offence was changed twice.

The New Straits Times newspaper said in an editorial that "Anwar's acquittal should bring the curtains down on one of the most protracted and bizarre political sagas the country has ever seen."

The once immensely popular Anwar was sacked by then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1998 and jailed for 15 years shortly afterwards on corruption and sodomy charges, which he said were trumped up to prevent him from mounting a political challenge to his boss.

He had already completed a sentence for corruption and had faced at least another five years in prison until yesterday's court decision.

Anwar's trials were heavily criticised by human rights and judicial groups, and he was considered a political prisoner by the United States and adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.