July 17, 2008	Thursday	Rajab 13, 1429

KUALA LUMPUR, July 16: Police arrested Malaysia’s leading opposition figure on Wednesday on suspicion that he abused a male aide --- the second time in a decade that he has had to face an allegation that could send him to jail for 20 years and ruin his campaign to bring down the country’s government.

Anwar Ibrahim, 61, dismissed the accusation --- made last month by the 23-year-old aide --- as a “malicious” fabrication by the same ruling establishment that jailed him for sodomy and corruption in 1998.

“This is not a criminal case but a political case,” said Azmin Ali, vice-president of Anwar’s People’s Justice Party.

The arrest will give some breathing space to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s government, which is struggling to cope with internal dissent after recent election losses, and threats by Anwar to seize power by mid-September. Abdullah’s administration has denied any role in the sodomy allegation against Anwar.

Sodomy, even between consenting adults, is punishable by up to 20 years in prison in Malaysia.

His lawyers said he will remain in detention at least overnight and possibly longer. “The excuse is that they need to take further statements” from Anwar, said Sankara Nair, one of his lawyers.

Anwar had agreed to voluntarily submit himself for questioning at police headquarters on Wednesday, but was arrested outside his house an hour before the designated time by a posse of policemen, some wearing ski masks.

“There was a lot of fear and intimidation. It was absolutely unnecessary,” said Nair, who witnessed the arrest.

Anwar was pulled out of his car as he returned home from an engagement and was driven to the police headquarters in a car with tinted windows.

Nair said Anwar was arrested as a suspect for the alleged sodomy of the male aide. Anwar can be held as a suspect for up to 14 days without being charged.

The sodomy allegation revived images of a similar ordeal in 1998 when Anwar was fired as deputy prime minister and finance minister after being accused of sodomising his family driver.

Anwar, who at the time was part of the ruling National Front coalition, was subsequently convicted and jailed in what he says was a conspiracy by then prime minister Mahathir Mohamad to win a power struggle. Anwar’s downfall led to massive street protests by his supporters for weeks.

Malaysia’s Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, but by then Anwar had served six years in prison on a related abuse of power charge. He was freed in 2004, reviving his political career as an opposition leader.

For the past year, Anwar worked tirelessly to bring the ideologically divided opposition into an alliance that recently shook up the National Front coalition that has ruled the country since it gained independence from Britain in 1957.

In March, the Front lost its two-thirds majority in parliament as the opposition alliance won 82 of the 222 seats and took control of governments in five of Malaysia’s 13 states. The outcome radically changed the political landscape of a country long accustomed to semi-authoritarian government.—AP