From Malaysia Kini

Anwar Ibrahim’s appeal against his sacking from the government in 1998 will be heard by the Federal Court on Thursday.

Claiming that he had been unlawfully dismissed over trumped up sodomy charges, Anwar has named the then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the government as respondents in the suit.

When the matter was up before the apex court this morning, Anwar’s lawyer Karpal Singh had urged Federal Court judge Hashim Yusoff to disqualify himself from the case as the judge had previously presided over Anwar’s sodomy case at the Court of Appeal.

Justice Hashim who is the second judge in the three member bench at the Federal Court agreed to the request.

“If you want me to recuse myself, I will,” he said, which prompted Chief Judge of Malaya Alauddin Md Sheriff to ask Karpal if he wanted to proceed with the appeal without Hashim’s presence or wanted a postponement so that a replacement judge could be found.

Continuing with a new judge

Karpal then asked for a short adjournment to seek instructions from Anwar, who was also present in court with his wife and PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

Besides Alauddin and Hashim, the third judge on the panel was Abdull Hamid Embong.

After consulting with Anwar and informing the court’s deputy registrar, the apex court then agreed to fix to hear the matter on Thursday with another judge replacing Hashim.

Senior federal counsel Kamaluddin Md Said appeared for Dr Mahathir and the government.