RECALLING his arrest 25 years ago when a crack police team entered his house to extract him in front of a huge crowd, Prime Minister (PM) Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said he was almost killed that night.Speaking to Christiane Amanpour from CNN during his recent visit to New York, Anwar was asked to tell us one more time about what he went through in jail.“I was badly abused and assaulted to near death the night I was arrested,” said Anwar, recalling his arrest 25 years ago.He also stated that he “learned the meaning of freedom” behind bars. “I’m in a sense more a Democrat than before I was arrested.”The PM insisted that the charges of sodomy against him were trumped-up charges—that is, they were fake.Anwar also said that with all the trials and tribulations in life, he still has to do his best for his country.Amanpour told Anwar that as she was sitting with him in this interview, she could not stop recalling South Africa’s icon Nelson Mandela who was jailed for 28 years and came to power to transform South Africa into a democracy.“Madiba (Mandela) taught me to be able to forgive and to be compassionate and to really focus on what we have to do for democratic accountability to serve your people,” claimed Anwar.Meanwhile, pro-Pakatan Harapan (PH) and PKR supporters are posting old videos of interviews with Sukma Darmawan in which he denies being sodomised by Anwar.Sukma was jailed in 1998 for sodomy after making what he said was a forced confession.Moreover, prosecutors later used Sukma’s admission to convict Anwar, who spent more than five years in jail on corruption and sodomy charges before being freed in 2004.Anwar has always denied all the charges, saying they were contrived to end his career. – Sept 23, 2023
Main photo credit: CNN
