(Petaling Jaya, Saturday): There is general expectation that the sacked Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, might be detained under the Internal Security Act instead of being charged in open court for various serious charges levelled against him, such as sexual misconduct, corruption, murder and treason.
DAP National Vice Chairman and MP for Kepong, Dr. Tan Seng Giaw and I visited Anwar at his Bukit Damansara residence this monring as friends and fellow parliamentarians. I discussed with him my proposal for an emergency meeting of Parliament and a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the serious charges levelled against Anwar and the former Deputy Prime Minister�s equally very serious charges that instruments of government had been manipulated in a political conspiracy to topple him.
Anwar is supportive of the proposal for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Anwar allegations, both those made against him and by him. I have asked for an appointment with the Prime Minister to convey to him my proposal for a Royal Commission of Inquiry and I am waiting for his response.
I call on Dr. Mahathir to give a clear-cut assurance that the Internal
Security Act detention-without-trial laws would not be used against Anwar;
that Anwar would be accorded the benefit of the fundamental principle
that a man is innocent until proven guilty and that there would be an open
trial, whether in open court or by way of a Royal Commission of Inquiry,
into all the serious charges made against Anwar; and that there would be
a full public inquiry into the serious allegations by a just-sacked Deputy
Prime Minister about the gross abuses of power in the manipulation of the
instruments of government in a political conspiracy to topple him.
(5/9/98)