MALAYSIA:ARMED POLICE in balaclavas seized the Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim yesterday, an hour before the time at which he had agreed to surrender to an arrest warrant on sodomy charges.
The move, two weeks after a 23-year-old male aide complained to police that the former deputy prime minister sexually assaulted him, is bound to stoke political tensions in Malaysia.
Last night, after eight hours of questioning, Mr Anwar was taken to hospital for tests. He was later remanded in custody.
Mr Anwar (60), who led a resurgent opposition to unprecedented success in March's general election, says the charges are "malicious" and fabricated to derail his political comeback.
The allegations are a grim echo of his conviction on sodomy charges a decade ago, when he served six years in jail. He was sacked from the government, but Malaysia's supreme court eventually cleared him and he was released in 2004.
His arrest in 1998 led to weeks of protests. Yesterday, hundreds of his supporters gathered at the police headquarters where he was being held, but calm prevailed.
"This is not a criminal case but a political case," said Azmin Ali, the vice-president of Mr Anwar's People's Justice party, who branded the arrest "outrageous".
Mr Anwar was returning to Kuala Lumpur from Malaysia's administrative capital of Putrajaya when his car was stopped. He was pulled from his car into a police vehicle with blacked-out windows and driven away in a large convoy.
His wife, Azizah Ismail, said: "I feel apprehensive because my husband . . . is not that well. He has a bad back, he's had surgery. And . . . he said they were not gentle." Mr Anwar was beaten by the police chief after his arrest 10 years ago, and appeared in court with a badly bruised face.
No formal charges have been laid and police can hold him for up to 14 days. But his senior lawyer Sankara Nair said he expected Mr Anwar to be charged under the law which makes sodomy - even between consenting adults - punishable by 20 years' imprisonment.
"There is no basis for this whole fabrication and malicious attacks," Mr Anwar said before his arrest. "It is just a repeat of the 1998 script. You can see the pattern."
The sodomy allegations have already hampered his plans to challenge Abdullah Badawi's ruling National Front coalition. It has held power for 51 years but lost its two-thirds majority after opposition parties won 82 seats in the 222-member parliament, up from 19. -