KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 2: Mahathir Mohamad, the veteran Asian leader who sacked Anwar Ibrahim and was accused of holding him as a political prisoner, said on Thursday he was "mildly surprised" by his former protege's release.
Mr Mahathir said he would "not lose any sleep" over the fact that Mr Anwar had been freed by the highest court in the land on the grounds that his conviction for sodomy was wrong.
Speaking at a news conference, flanked by his wife and three of his children, Mahathir said the decision to jail or free his former deputy prime minister was completely up to the courts.
Mr Anwar, foreign governments and rights groups had long protested that he was a political prisoner after he was jailed on corruption and sodomy charges in 1998. "This is the decision of the court that he is not guilty. I always explained this to a lot of people who kept asking me to take pity, to be generous and to release Anwar," Mahathir was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.
"The fact is that I don't have the power to do that. In Malaysia, we follow the process of law." Commenting on Mr Anwar's statement after his release that he did not bear malice against him, Mahathir said: "I must think he must be a generous person indeed."
Asked about his views on the country's political scenario now, Mahathir said: "I am no longer involved in politics, and what happens from now, it is not my business." -AFP
