Malaysia's jailed former finance minister, Mr Anwar Ibrahim, said he was poisoned as part of a criminal conspiracy and demanded an investigation into what he said could be attempted murder.
Mr Anwar was taken to hospital yesterday after his lawyer said a pathologist in Australia had certified arsenic had been found in his urine.
"It's now proven that I have been poisoned," Mr Anwar said in a police report filed yesterday and read to reporters by his wife.
"I regret that the conspiracy to topple me has not been limited to just political action but now also involves physical moves to poison me."
Mr Anwar's lawyer, Mr Karpal Singh, who is a leader of an opposition party, said he suspected "some people in high places" were responsible for poisoning the former minister.
But the attorney general, Mr Mohtar Abdullah, told Mr Anwar's trial that the former prime-minister-in-waiting had taken food from family members in the courtroom. The trial was adjourned to allow Mr Anwar to be taken to hospital.
"Datuk Seri Anwar has been allowed by the prison authorities to mix around and mingle freely in this court," Mr Mohtar said.
Mr Anwar's allegation that he was poisoned was the latest twist in Malaysia's year-long political drama pitting the charismatic former deputy prime minister against his former mentor, the Prime Minister, Mr Mahathir Mohamad.
Mr Anwar was sacked by Mr Mahathir in September 1998 and arrested later that month after leading thousands of anti-government protesters through the capital.
The police chief hit the handcuffed and blindfolded Mr Anwar on the night of his arrest. The former prime-minister-in-waiting later appeared in court with a black eye and bruises, sparking international condemnation.
Before the police chief admitted he hit Mr Anwar, Mr Mahathir said his former deputy's injuries could have been self-inflicted.
Mr Anwar was sentenced in April to six years in jail for corruption. He says he is innocent and the victim of a plot by political opponents led by Mr Mahathir to sideline him from power.
Mr Anwar's wife, Ms Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, quickly denied suggestions his family had tried to poison him to win political sympathy ahead of general elections due by June but expected sooner. Ms Wan Azizah leads one of the opposition parties.
"This is genuine concern for my husband's life," Ms Wan Azizah told reporters. "How could anybody at a time like this say, even insinuate, that the family could have been the cause of this or even thought of poisoning him?"
Mr Syed Husin Ali, leader of the opposition Parti Rakyat Malaysia, said: "It's the most horrendous thing I have heard of and there is no doubt somebody up there wants him to be killed, if not politically, then physically."
Ms Wan Azizah later told reporters at the hospital that Mr Anwar was being kept at the executive ward to undergo a thorough check-up. She said the court had ordered a detailed test.
"He is in very good spirits, but he is very alarmed that his life is threatened. But what can we do? He is, after all, in custody," she said.
Police were stationed outside the ward on the seventh floor of the hospital. Reporters were not allowed into the ward.
After Mr Anwar was arrested last year, Ms Wan Azizah said she worried he would be injected with the HIV virus which causes AIDS.
"From the very beginning, we have seen the existence of a conspiracy to silence his influence in politics. However, we never expected them to go this far, to commit a criminal act," she said.
"Now there's evidence that he has been poisoned and the poisoning is serious," she said, calling arsenic insidious.
Mr Anwar, reiterating what his lawyer, Mr Karpal, told the capital's High Court earlier yesterday, said a dangerously high level of arsenic - almost 80 times normal - had been found in his urine.
Wan Ms Azizah said the pathologist who tested Mr Anwar's urine said such a high level of arsenic could not have been accidental. "His life is in jeopardy," Mr Karpal said.
Mr Anwar said he was not sure whether he was poisoned while held in federal police headquarters in September and October last year, or in Sungai Buloh prison outside the capital to which he was moved in October.