Malaysia opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim (left) and his wife Wan Azizah (Right)
KUALA LUMPUR: Three members of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's party have been arrested for graft, triggering accusations of "dirty tricks" Thursday ahead of a tense by-election.
Anwar, who was sacked as deputy premier and jailed a decade ago, has accused the ruling coalition of trying to undermine his chances of returning to parliament in an August 26 ballot in his home state of Penang.
Anti-corruption officials on Wednesday detained two members of the state cabinet in northern Perak which is run by Anwar's opposition alliance, as well as another official in his Keadilan party.
They were among a group of six people accused of taking bribes of more than 120,000 ringgit (US$36,000) from a businessman to expedite a local housing project, the New Straits Times reported.
"None of them resisted when the team barged into the hotel room," state anti-corruption chief Samsiah Abu Bakar told the daily after the raid. "We also found 100,000 ringgit in a bag belonging to one of the suspects," she added.
Anwar was convicted on sodomy and corruption charges after his 1998 sacking, but the sex charge was later overturned. He now faces new allegations of sodomy, levelled by a former aide, which Anwar says is a government conspiracy.
Keadilan leaders questioned the graft arrests and said the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition is trying to halt Anwar after March elections that handed the opposition an unprecedented five states and a third of parliamentary seats.
A cyclist passes by a poster of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in Permatang Pauh.
"The BN government is playing dirty tricks to try and prevent Anwar from winning and to give (the opposition alliance) a bad name," Keadilan deputy president Syed Husin Ali told AFP.
"I was told the money officials claimed to have discovered in a bag was actually put there by some other individuals, so this smells of entrapment," he added.
Perak's chief minister Nizar Jamaluddin, from the conservative Islamic party PAS which is a member of the opposition alliance, said he was perplexed by the allegations.
"It is impossible for the two executive council members who have been victimised to approve the project when it does not even exist," he told the New Straits Times.
Police on Wednesday detained another Keadilan leader over an attack on two photographers by a group wearing the party's T-shirts last weekend. His lawyer Ngeow Chow Ying told AFP he was actually protecting the two from the mob.
"I think you can tell from all these unfounded arrests that the BN government is using dirty tricks to try and damage our reputation," Syed Husin said, accusing the government of buying votes ahead of the by-election.
- AFP/yb
Channel NewsAsia
21/08/08
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