On day three of Anwar Ibrahim’s appeal in the Federal Court, his legal team told the court that according to a medical examination conducted on Saiful Bukhari, there was no evidence of tearing, scarring, or injury to his anus, asserting that there was no occurrence of forceful intrusion.

Ramkarpal Singh said that there was doubt to the factum of penetration on Saiful, submitting that the Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) doctor Mohd Osman Abdul Hamid found Saiful’s anus to be in normal condition.

Dr Osman, a former doctor in Hospital Pusrawi, had been the first to examine the alleged sodomy victim and had written a medical report detailing his findings, however this report had been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

He argued that the trial judge had erred about the samples taken from Saiful, questioning how semen could be found in Saiful’s anus since the medical evidence showed that it had not been forcefully breached.

“All four doctors, including three from HKL, state there are no signs of injury. Saiful says he was ravaged in a rough manner, resulting in excruciating pain, but there is no injury.”

Ramkarpal said that penetration was ‘assumed’ to take place despite no conclusive evidence of penile penetration.

He added that the three doctors had based their decision instead on the delay by Saiful in check-up; the use of lubricants; the lack of force during the incident; and the lack of resistance by Saiful.

Semen traces found on wrong underpants

“How did they (prosecution through sampling and DNA tests) find semen in rectum when no suggestive indication of penetration?” he probed further.

Justice Suriyadi had asked if there was evidence that the underwear was washed, and Ramkarpal said yes, but the underwear used to show seminal stains were not the ones Saiful had used on the day of the alleged sodomy.

“If seminal stain was found on that underwear, then there should also be similar stains on the trousers he used on the day of the incident,” he said.

Did the sex last for 5 minutes or 30 minutes?

He also continued to highlighted inconsistencies with Saiful’s testimony in court, where Saiful said that he was sodomized for a duration of five minutes – but he had told the HKL doctors and Superintendent Jude Pereira that the act had lasted for 30 minutes.

“If this is so (the longer duration), there will be signs of injury. This casts serious doubt on Saiful’s testimony,” Ramkarpal opined.

DNA samples were compromised 

Ramkarpal also found fault with the handling of the evidence that allegedly contained the DNA samples.

By his own admission, Sgt Jude Pereira, when receiving the samples, saw fit to open the sealed envelopes to separate the tube of samples and label them himself. Ramkarpal said that Pereira had “absolutely no reason to open a sealed envelope as the tubes were already labeled”.

He said that Pereira contributed by being the third party DNA present in the samples -effectively compromising the DNA evidence that was used to convict Anwar of sodomy.

Dr David Wells who was the defence’s expert witness had said during the earlier trial that the DNA may have been tampered with by removing the seals and replacing them without detection, but this was dismissed by the Court of Appeal at the time because Well’s had “not witnessed the actual tampering” that he spoke of.

Later, Anwar Ibrahim said that he was extremely satisfied and impressed with the work by the defence team.

“My counsel have presented a set of concrete evidence and arguments, leading any court with integrity to consider otherwise,” he said.

Proceedings were adjourned at 1pm, allowing the prosecution team led by Shafee Abdullah to make their submissions on Friday. The case is scheduled to conclude on Monday, where the defence will be allowed to respond to the prosecution’s case. -The Rocket