Saturday
6th
February
2010
Tymoshenko raises threat of second Orange Revolution
Rivals trade insults on eve of poll which will send one of them to political oblivion
Shaun Walker - Independent
Ukraine will elect a new president tomorrow after months of bitter political infighting, with analysts fearing that violent clashes could break out once the results are announced.
Supporters of Yulia Tymoshenko claimed that her rival in the run-off, Viktor Yanukovych, had brought 2,000 former police and security officials into the capital, Kiev, to act as his muscle. Yesterday, 250 of Mr Yanukovych's supporters were camped outside Ukraine's Central Election Commission. They said they were there to prevent any attempt to "hijack" the election by Ms Tymoshenko.
"If Yanukovych wants an honest fight, we're ready to compete," Ms Tymoshenko said. "But if he tries to cheat, we'll be able to rebuff him in ways he's never seen before. We will call people on to the streets, there is no doubt."
The closeness of the race has lent a febrile mood to the last week of the campaign, with the candidates, both of whom face political oblivion if they lose, trading vitriolic insults. Mr Yanukovych, who largely represents the Russian-speaking east and south of the country, was accused by Ms Tymoshenko of being a "puppet" of the oligarchs. He repeatedly called Ms Tymoshenko, one of the leaders of the 2004 Orange Revolution, a liar. He said nobody will come to the streets to fight for her, because people were "sick of her lies, her adventurist politics and her inability to lead the government effectively".
Ms Tymoshenko entered what was supposed to be a television debate between the two candidates this week, but ended up talking to a lectern after Mr Yanukovich stood her up. She called him a "common coward" for refusing the debate. Clumsy and more Soviet in his manner, Mr Yanukovych has preferred to address large ralliesof his own supporters.
The second round comes after last month's initial vote, which failed to determine an outright winner. Viktor Yushchenko, the current President, who has led the country through several years of political and economic turmoil, was knocked out in the first round of voting.
He and Ms Tymoshenko were the figureheads of the Orange Revolution, but Mr Yushchenko was mysteriously poisoned before the 2004 election, and he and Ms Tymoshenko subsequently fell out. Since then, Ukraninian politics has been mired in infighting. If Mr Yanukovych wins tomorrow, the country will have come full circle, and the book will finally be closed on the Orange Revolution.
Ukraine - the Orange tide has turned
Portuguese police discover bomb cache
In Portugal explosives have been found in a rented house.
Portuguese police searched the house following a tip from neighbours after two Spanish-speaking tenants hurriedly left the building. The two are still at large. They may have fled after the police found detonators on two men in a van in the vicinity.
In the house, police found 500 kilos of explosives and bomb-making equipment.
Spain says the house was being used by ETA members, but Portugal has not confirmed this.
ETA has used France as a base for attacks in Spain for dozens of years. The authorities believe Portugal is being used now.
At the beginning of last month, two ETA members were arrested in Portugal driving a van loaded with explosives towards a Spanish police barracks just over the border. The two men will be extradited soon.
New face of the bomber
Accused MPs argue they are above the law
Sam Coates and Francis Elliott - The Times
Three Labour MPs charged yesterday with theft over fraudulent expense claims declared that they were above the law and would fight attempts to put them on trial.
Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine each face up to seven years in jail after Keir Starmer, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, announced that he was charging them under the Theft Act 1968.
Lord Hanningfield, the Tory frontbencher and leader of Essex County Council, faces six charges over his expense claims.
In a joint statement, the three MPs announced that they would fight the charges by claiming parliamentary privilege over their expense claims. It said: “We maintain that this is an issue that should be resolved by the parliamentary commissioner, who is there to enforce any breach of the rules.”
Mr Starmer, who spelt out the charges after a nine-month police investigation, said that their defence would be tested before a judge, preparing the way for a battle between the rights of Parliament and the courts.
The four have been summoned to appear initially on March 11, shortly before Gordon Brown is expected to call the general election. All insisted they were not guilty, and a full trial is not expected until later in the year.
Mr Starmer said he believed that there was evidence that the MPs broke the laws of concealment, falsification and destruction of accounting records for financial gain.
Mr Morley, MP for Scunthorpe, was charged with claiming £14,428 more than he was entitled on mortgage costs for a property in Winterton, Lincolnshire. He then claimed a further £16,000 after the mortgage had been paid off.
Mr Chaytor was accused of using faked invoices to claim for £1,950 of IT services. He also claimed £12,925 for renting a property in Regency Street, Central London, which he already owned, as well as claiming rent on a property owned by his mother.
Mr Devine, MP for Livingston, faces charges for using fake invoices to claim £3,240 for cleaning and £5,505 for stationery.
Lord Hanningfield’s charges include making “numerous claims for overnight staying in London when records show that he was driven home”.
A fifth individual, believed to be the Labour peer Baroness Uddin, is under investigation for her housing arrangements and could face charges.
A sixth, Lord Clarke of Hampstead, also Labour, will not be charged as “there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of a conviction”.
Parliametary freedom
Latvia auctions entire town
Latvia has auctioned an
entire garrison town, deserted since the
departure of Russian troops in 1999.Skrunda-1, which lies 150 kilometres west of the capital Riga, was one of many closed communities dotted across the Soviet Union after the Second World War. They housed Russian military or scientific facilities, together with employees and their families.
The buyer, a company from Russia, paid 2.2 million euros for the 45-hectare site, which contains ten apartment blocks, two nightclubs, a shopping centre, a kindergarten, barracks and a sauna complex. Due to lack of maintenance, many of the buildings are in poor condition. It is unclear what the buyer intends to do with the site.
Latvia was part of the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1991.
Scotland and Latvia
Revealed - Blunders that cost lives of eight US troops in Camp Keating
Tom Coghlan - The Times
Half an hour after the attack began, the American commander radioed his superiors. Taleban fighters had penetrated his defensive perimeter in three places, he said, and only the tactical operations centre remained in his hands.
His ammunition store was overrun and his only remaining communications link was a satellite phone. “I’m telling you that if they don’t get here f****** soon, we’re all going to f****** die,” he shouted, above a din of gunfire.
Praising the courage of its troops, but condemning a succession of errors by ground commanders, the US military released yesterday parts of its internal investigation into a now notorious Taleban attack that nearly overran an American base in October.
The attack on Combat Outpost (COP) Keating, close to the Pakistan border, prompted a significant reassessment of US tactics, particularly the usefulness of small combat outposts in sparsely populated areas. American commanders have since abandoned several such positions.
The report, by Major-General Guy Swan, is highly critical of the chain of events that led to the deaths of eight American soldiers, with 32 of the outpost’s 60 defenders injured.
The base was poorly sited “in a deep bowl” and had no tactical worth, he reports. Plans to close it were delayed, but a “mindset of imminent closure” meant that commanders had not worked on the defences. Enemy fighters launched 47 attacks in the five months before October 3, 2009, apparently testing defences.
However, the report heaps praise on the “tremendous courage, tenacity and valor with which the soldiers of B Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry, fought”.
As many as 150 of an estimated 300 attackers were killed or injured.
The report corroborates a leaked unofficial account, apparently written by a US army radio operator who listened to the unfolding battle. The attack began at 5.58am with a barrage of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades (RPG), and small-arms fire, the report says. Within two minutes a soldier was killed in the base mortar pit. His commander reported that insurgents were firing down into the base from above, pinning down his main defence, a 60mm and a 120mm mortar.
The commander, who is not named in the report, made an urgent request for air support but was told it would take 45 minutes to arrive.
Soon after, the commander reported “people inside our wire” as Taleban fighters forced entry through the latrines of the Afghan National Army quarters, setting it on fire.
By 6.30am five Americans were dead. Heavy RPG fire was reported to be coming from the mosque of the neighbouring village. Two minutes later the American defenders fell back to their tactical headquarter building as a “final fighting position”.
According to the radio operator’s account, Taleban fighters had also overrun the ammunition store.
The official report states: “With critical supporting fires from USAF close-air support and AH-64 Apache helicopter close-combat aviation fires, the junior officers and NCOs regained the initiative and fought back during the afternoon hours to regain control of COP Keating.”According to the radio operator’s account, the base commander reported in the late afternoon that the base was slowly burning to the ground and that if they lost air cover and another attack began they were “done”. Asked whether he could reoccupy the whole base, the commander replied: “(I) just can’t do it. I just don’t have enough people. I have too many wounded.”
At 7.02pm, 13 hours after the attack began, reinforcements arrived.
(top)
Avalanche kills skiers in Iran
In
northern Iran, at least eight skiers have been killed by an
avalanche. Rescue workers were able to save 49 other people, among them three foreigners. The nationality of the three is not yet known.
The avalanche occurred between two popular skiing resorts, Shemshak and Dizin, in the Alborz mountain range west of the capital Tehran.
It has been snowing heavily in the area for several days.
Shameless MPs try to dodge trial using 1689 law
which protects them from prosecution
Stephen Wright and Jason Groves - Daily Mail
Three MPs charged with expenses fraud were last night hoping to use arcane laws from the 17th century to prevent their trials going ahead.
The Labour trio - along with a Tory peer - were charged under the Theft Act over allegations that they dishonestly pocketed thousands of pounds in second homes expenses. If convicted they face up to seven years in jail.
But, in an extraordinary twist, it emerged that the three MPs hope to use the 1689 Bill of Rights to wriggle out of prosecution. Legal experts have advised them that, under the ancient law, the Commons rulebook on expenses is covered by Parliamentary privilege.
This, they argue, means the book cannot be subject to scrutiny by the courts and should protect them from prosecution. They say that they can be judged only by a committee of MPs.
The four politicians were told early yesterday that they are to be prosecuted for theft by false accounting. The police probe alone has already cost taxpayers £486,000 and has involved up to 13 Scotland Yard detectives.
Last night, in a speech to the Oxford Union, Commons Speaker John Bercow acknowledged that the expenses scandal had done huge damage to Parliament and made it look as if MPs 'inhabited a parallel universe'. But Mr Bercow, who had to repay £978 in expenses, warned against imposing too severe a crackdown on MPs' expenses, saying it could put people off standing for Parliament.
The shamed trio - Elliot Morley of Scunthorpe, David Chaytor of Bury North and Livingston's Jim Devine - all denied the fraud accusations, as did Tory peer Lord Hanningfield, who faces six charges relating to his claims for House of Lords allowances.
But even before the charges were announced live on TV by Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer, QC, battle lines had been drawn by their lawyers who believe the 321-year-old Bill of Rights could help get the MPs off the hook.
In the run-up to yesterday's decision, the MPs' lawyers sent submissions to prosecutors outlining their possible defence strategy.
Mr Starmer said: 'Lawyers representing those who have been charged have raised with us the question of Parliamentary privilege. We have concluded that the applicability and extent of any Parliamentary privilege claimed should be tested in court.'
LibDem Parliamentary spokesman David Heath said: 'We do not have immunity from prosecution for parliamentarians in this country. Parliamentary privilege exists purely to ensure we can do our job properly, not to protect us from the law.'
Yesterday's charges followed Thursday's verdict on MPs' expenses by Sir Thomas Legg, who conducted an audit of all claims made in recent years and condemned the system as 'deeply flawed'. Hundreds of MPs were ordered to repay a total of £1.12million.
The decision to press charges against three MPs ensures that the expenses scandal will run right through the General Election campaign.
| The Accused | The Charges |
The
History |
ELLIOT MORLEY LABOUR MP Former agriculture minister, MP for Scunthorpe for 23 years |
April 2004-Feb
2006: Allegedly dishonestly claimed mortgage expenses of
£14,428 on Lincolnshire home March 2006 - Nov 2007: Allegedly dishonestly claimed mortgage expenses of £16,000 on the same house when loan no longer existed |
Claimed £16,000 -
£800 a month - in mortgage interest on constituency
home for 21 months after loan repaid Apologised and said he had repaid the money as soon as he realised his 'mistake' Said he felt 'terrible' and admitted he should have kept a 'tighter rein' Barred by Labour from standing again |
LORD HANNINGFIELD TORY Former pig farmer, leader of Essex County Council and Tory business spokesman in the Lords |
March 2006 - May
2009: Allegedly dishonestly submitted claims for
expenses to which he knew he was not entitled Six charges in total, which focus on numerous claims for overnight expenses for staying in London when he was allegedly driven home |
Allegedly claimed
£99,970 in 'overnight subsistence' since becoming
peer in 1998 Said to have claimed for staying in London but returned to home in Chelmsford 46 miles away |
DAVID CHAYTOR LABOUR MP MP for Bury North since 1997 |
May 2006: Allegedly
dishonestly claimed £1,950 for computer services
using false invoices Sept 2005 - Sept 2006: Allegedly dishonestly claimed £12,925 for rent on London property when he was the owner Sept 2007 - Jan 2008: Allegedly dishonestly claimed £5,425 for renting house in Bury from his mother |
Allegedly used
daughter as bogus landlady and claimed almost £13,000
expenses in rent on London flat he already owned Swapped his second home four times in less than three years. Allegedly claimed £5,400 while renting house in August 2007, which belonged to his mother. Not obvious as she'd remarried |
JIM DEVINE LABOUR MP Former psychiatric nurse and election agent for Robin Cook until his sudden death in 2005, after which he took over the seat |
July 2008 - April
2009: Allegedly dishonestly claimed £3,240 for
cleaning services using false invoices March 2009 - Allegedly dishonestly claimed £5,505 for stationery using false invoices |
Barred by Labour from standing again in connection with other expense claims not connected to today's charges, which cannot be reported for legal reasons |
Gordon Brown said: 'Where there has been criminal action it has got to be dealt with in the harshest way.' And David Cameron said the prosecuting authorities should be able to pursue 'anybody who has broken the law without fear or favour'.
The four parliamentarians are due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on March 11 - less than a month before the expected start of the General Election campaign.
Mr Morley is alleged to have dishonestly claimed £30,428 more than he was entitled to in second home expenses on a house in Winterton, near Scunthorpe, between 2004 and 2007 - including 18 months after the mortgage on the property was paid off.
Mr Chaytor faces charges that he claimed almost £13,000 in rent in 2005 and 2006 on a London flat which he owned, as well as £5,425 to rent a property in Lancashire owned by his mother. He is also alleged to have dishonestly claimed £1,950 for IT services using false invoices in May 2006.
Mr Devine is alleged to have claimed £3,240 for cleaning services and £5,505 for stationery using false invoices in 2008 and 2009.
THE LAW
Theft, under the 1968 Act, is defined as 'dishonestly appropriating property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it'.
All four Parliamentarians have been charged under Section 17, which relates to false accounting. This includes actively falsifying records or physically destroying them.
For the defendant to be found guilty, this has to be done with the 'intent to cause loss to another'. In this case, there was allegedly false accounting with the intent of causing loss to the taxpayer. This is the key element and will have to be proved by prosecutors.
PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE
This gives MPs the constitutional right of protection from civil or criminal liability for actions and statements made in relation to their duties. Most notably, it lets MPs speak freely in the Commons chamber without fear of legal action for slander. It first developed to protect Parliament from royal interference.
There is no definitive guide about what constitutes privilege - it is decided in Parliament on a case by case basis. The crux of the case for MPs will be the interpretation of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights, from which it developed. This states: 'Proceedings in parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court.'
In a statement, the Labour MPs said: 'We totally refute any charges that we have committed an offence and we will defend our position robustly.'
The MPs said they believed their cases should have been dealt with instead by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.
Lord Hanningfield faces six charges of false accounting, relating to claims for overnight allowances from the House of Lords between March 2006 and May 2009, when records allegedly show he was in fact driven to his home near Chelmsford.
The peer was yesterday suspended from the Parliamentary Conservative Party and resigned as a business spokesman in the Lords. He is also quitting as leader of Essex County Council.
He said: 'I totally refute the charges and will vigorously defend myself against them. I have never claimed more in expenses than I have spent in the course of my duties.'
Mr Starmer said the CPS was continuing to consider one further case, believed to be that of Labour peer Baroness Uddin, while 'insufficient evidence' had been found to bring charges against Labour peer and former party chairman Lord Clarke of Hampstead, the only parliamentarian to admit 'fiddling' his expenses.
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Tea Party Convention Gives Boost to Newcomer Politicians
Judson Berger - FOX News
Doris Gentry arrived in Nashville on Wednesday with little more than a pair of crossed fingers. She had flown in from Napa, Calif., to attend the National Tea Party Convention but did not have one of the 600 tickets for the sold-out event.
"Once I decided I just have to come, I was on the waiting list," she said.
So when registration opened Thursday afternoon, Gentry waited outside. And she waited. And she waited. Finally, after about five hours, she said a slot opened up from a cancelation, and she was able to buy a ticket in. "I'm like a dog with a bone," she said. "I'm tenacious."
That tenacity comes from more than just a desire to hear Sarah Palin, the convention's keynote speaker on Saturday night. Gentry is one of the handful of convention-goers who's actually running for office and trying to figure out how to use the tea party movement as a vehicle for getting elected.
Gentry ran unsuccessfully on the GOP ticket for State Assembly in her Democrat-heavy district two years ago. But she said she's hoping the emergence of tea party groups and the tips she picks up about messaging and organizing at the convention will give her run the fire it needs this time around.
Gentry, 55, president of the manufacturing company Lift Mates, said she's involved with and has the support of lots of tea party groups in her home community. And, like many participants at the Nashville conference, she's drawing confidence in part from Republican Scott Brown's upset win last month in the Massachusetts Senate special election.
"Scott Brown was 30 points down and he won. I'm 23 points down," she said.
Many of the convention-goers, including Gentry, aren't trying to work around the GOP. Gentry aims to secure the GOP nomination again this year.
Rather, tea party activists and tea party-supported candidates are trying to use the movement to reshape the Republican Party from the inside.
Charlotte Bergmann, who's running to be the GOP challenger to Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen in Tennessee's 9th District, is one of the test cases of this strategy.
Bergmann, who drove to the convention from Memphis, is supported by Mark Skoda -- the Memphis Tea Party chairman who on Friday announced a new political organization to support and fund conservative candidates in the tea party mold. It was an early step toward solidifying the loose-knit conservative movement into something focused more on political races than political issues.
Bergmann, president of marketing firm Effective PMP, said this is her first time running for office, though she's been politically active in her home community for years -- making regular trips to Washington, D.C., to speak with Memphis-area representatives in Congress.
"I'm not a professional politician. I'm just passionate about the people in my community," she said.
Bergmann said it would have been difficult to enter the race through the GOP in pre-tea party days, but that the growing movement offers the kind of enthusiasm needed to mount a successful campaign. And their ideals are right in line with hers: limited government, better security, less spending.
"This is our year -- 2010," she said. "We're taking our country back."
Others at the Nashville convention were there to learn more about registering conservative voters, learn more about organizing local tea party groups and be among like-minded activists.
The convention itself is somewhat of an experiment.
"Every time we do something, it's like we've never done it before, but it's not stopping us," said Judson Phillips, head of convention organizer Tea Party Nation.
The lineup of breakout sessions and talks reflects a desire among supporters to make the evolving tea party movement more organized and deliberate, with the ultimate goal of impacting elections.
Skoda, in announcing his new political group Friday, said tea party supporters have to do more than just hold signs at rallies, which he said hasn't necessarily gotten a lot of attention in Washington.
"The way you change that is by getting people elected," he said.
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Tehran welcomes nuclear deal, with alterations
Press TV
Iran's foreign minister says he hopes that an agreement on the nuclear fuel proposal will soon be reached, but with the changes that Tehran seeks.
Manouchehr Mottaki's Friday message came just days after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signaled that his country was ready to accept a deal, in what has been seen as a possible breakthrough.
"The most important point is the political will. Personally I feel this will is there," Mottaki said during a late-night debate with his Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, at the Munich Security Conference.
"I personally believe that we have created favorable conditions for such an exchange in the not very distant future," he said, noting that he believed the diplomatic atmosphere had improved recently.
The agreement proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would see Iran ship its low-enriched uranium abroad for further processing, then all of it would be returned for use in the Tehran medical reactor, which produces treatments for cancer.
The Iranian foreign minister warned that his country would not accept the timeline proposed in the draft, which would require Iran to export its uranium and wait for up to a year before receiving the enriched fuel.
"There must be a guarantee for both sides that this (low-enriched uranium) will definitely be given and (highly-enriched uranium) will definitely be returned, this mechanism makes it possible to reach a compromise," Mottaki said.
"The best way to guarantee that all stages of the deal would be carried out according to the agreement would be for the supplier to start enriching uranium feedstock now, so that the exchange could take place simultaneously in some months' time," he said.
Iran has asked for guarantees since the deal was drafted in October. Western powers, however, have so far refused to appease Tehran's concerns, forcing a break-off in negotiations.
The West's two-edged stance on nuclear activity has not helped the negotiations either, with Iran complaining of the unfair privileges that a few certain states have in the UN Security Council that allows them to disregard Iran's legal rights.
Tehran says the Security Council has issued unfair resolutions against Iran's civil nuclear program, in contradiction to UN nuclear watchdog regulations that reserve a right for all countries to enrich uranium as part of a peaceful program. It also says that those unwarranted powers have given the West the leverage to turn a blind eye to Israel's nuclear proliferation and its other violations.
During the Friday meeting, Mottaki once again raised that argument, criticizing Europe for showing opposition to Iran's civil nuclear program. He went on to criticize the West for imposing no sanctions on Israel for its development of nuclear weapons.
"It is the recognized right of Iran to enjoy a peaceful nuclear program," he said.
(top)
Report: Assassins of Hamas official used Irish passports
Avi Issacharoff - Haaretz
The assassins of senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was found dead January 20 in Dubai, traveled to the Gulf country using Irish passports, according to a report in the Irish Herald.
Up to seven people were said to have been involved in Mabhouh's killing, four of whom used Irish passports to enter Dubai and who later fled to a "European country" after the killing, police sources in Dubai told the newspaper.
The report also quotes an Irish Foreign Ministry spokesperson, who said they are trying to determine the veracity of the report.
Earlier this week, a preliminary investigation conducted by Hamas suggested that the assassination was likely carried out by agents of an Arab government, and not by Israel's Mossad spy agency.
When Mabhouh, a senior Hamas official reportedly behind the smuggling of Iranian arms to Gaza, was found dead in his hotel room on January 20, the organization was quick to point the finger at Israeli intelligence, vowing revenge attacks.
Dubai police on Thursday said an arrest warrant could be issued for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Israel is found to have been involved in the killing.
However, both Hamas and Dubai police have said that Mabhouh had enemies across the Middle East, any of whom may have had a motive for his murder.
A Hamas source told Haaretz on Monday that Mabhouh was wanted by authorities in both Jordan and Egypt, where he previously spent a year in prison.
Assassination: A Brief History
Assassination and the words of Seymour Hersh
(top)
I didn’t pass motion for two days, court told
The Star - Kuala Lumpur
Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan did not pass motion for two days after he was allegedly sodomised on June 26, 2008, the High Court was told on the third day of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial.
When asked by lead prosecutor Solicitor-General II Datuk Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden if he had passed motion after the incident until he was examined by the KL Hospital doctor, Saiful, said loudly:
“No. I did not pass motion for two days.”
To another question by DPP Mohd Yusof, Mohd Saiful said he informed a Hospital Pusrawi doctor that he had felt pain in his stomach and anus.
At that time, he said the doctor wanted to insert something into his anus as part of his medical examination and he told the doctor of the alleged sodomy.
He said the doctor then stopped the examination.
Mohd Saiful said the doctor also did not reveal the results of his examination.
At the outset of the court proceedings yesterday, Mohd Saiful identified 11 samples taken from him.
Among them were swabs taken from his tongue, nipples, body, perianal region and private parts.
High and low rectal swabs and blood samples were also taken for DNA profiling.
When the samples sealed in containers were checked by the defence team, there were whispers and laughter from the public in the gallery.
Questioned by DPP Mohd Yusof, Mohd Saiful said his name was on each envelope used to keep the containers.
When his blood samples were identified, Mohd Saiful kept looking at those seated, including the family members of the Opposition Leader, at the gallery.
Mohd Saiful said photographs of his body, face, private parts, back and legs were also taken when examinations were conducted on him.
Apart from that, Mohd Saiful said he handed over his branded long-sleeved blue shirt which he had worn on the day of the alleged sodomy and a tube of KY Jelly lubricant to the investigating officer at a ward at KLH on June 29, 2008.
DPP Mohd Yusof: Can you identify the KY Jelly?
Mohd Saiful: Yes. This is the KY Jelly.
He said he immediately signed a form on handing over the items to the investigating officer that day.
DPP Mohd Yusof: Any clothings?
Mohd Saiful: The long-sleeved green shirt was handed over at my house. I (gave) a (pair of) black slacks that I wore on the day of the incident and two (pairs of) underwear, (a pair of) dark blue Levi’s and a grey Levi’s.
When each item of underwear was held up by a court policeman to be shown to the defence team, there were whispers, including from Mohd Saiful’s father, who was seated in the public gallery.
DPP Mohd Yusof: What is in this envelope?
Mohd Saiful: This is a (pair of) black slacks which was given (to the IO). This was actually a gift from Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
'Sodomy' Laws Show Survival of Colonial Injustice
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