Before the passport was delivered

The full picture of the link between Anwar Ibrahim and Kalimullah Hassan is slowly but surely beginning to take shape. This will establish the long talked link between Anwar Ibrahim and Khairy Jamaluddin.

And this blog had attempted to explore the same in MBf Mysteries. Although still inconclusive, that posting got the attention and endorsement of Wee Choo Keong here. There must something there.

Until this blogger get to look up and check few things, there is a snippet on Kalimullah to be shared from a July 22nd posting by Maharaja Blogger here:

Kalimullah memainkan isu isu yang menimbulkan kemarahan orang Melayu menerusi NST dalam soal Mahathir, agama Islam dan DEB disamping membesarkan berita mengenai ketidak adilan kepada masyarakat India dan juga agama lain.

Selepas Anwar dibebaskan, Kalimullah telah menulis sebuah rencana dalam NST supaya orang Melayu memaafkan Anwar dan melupakan sengketa dahulu ,membuang yang keroh dan mengambil yang jernih. Dia mahu Abdullah Badawi berbaik baik semula dengan Anwar. Rencana itu dalam ada dalam simpanan blogger ini disamping lain lain keratan memburukan Mahathir, menyentoh kesucian Islam dan memprovokasi umat Islam di negara ini.

That hint got one fast growing blog, The Unspinner to dig up for the article. They found it and publish the Sunday Times version here and the Berita Minggu Malay version here.

In the article, Kalimullah was elevating Abdullah Badawi to godly status, denigrating Tun Dr Mahathir as evil villain and subtly seeking readers' sympathy for Anwar.

Kalimullah highlighted Abdullah's leeway to the judiciary and Government's bungled handling of the case. And, he downplayed Anwar's antics, ridiculed court processes and findings, and cleverly casted negative aspersions on Mahathir.

The article was published on Sepetember 4th, 2004 few days before Khairy, who had acted upon Kalimullah's instruction, to expedite the issuance and personally delivered Anwar's passport to his home.

The article reproduced below:

YEARS from now, how will our history books record these last six years? Will people know what really happened? Will they just remember the pain of the financial crisis, the political turmoil, the violent street demonstrations, the fall from grace of a Deputy Prime Minister and forget how it all started?

How will history judge the principal personalities involved - Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim? Who knows?

Anwar Ibrahim is a free man now. He fought for close to six years to get that freedom and for a major part of that time, a nation divided watched the drama unfold.

The tremors of Anwar's sacking as Deputy Prime Minister on Sept 2, 1998, were most felt in Kuala Lumpur where his supporters took their dissatisfaction to the streets in sometimes violent demonstrations.

It was not the fact that he was sacked that shocked people so much. That was a political process. But what troubled Malaysians were the subsequent events.

Anwar was beaten up in detention by no less than the country's top policeman then, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Rahim Noor.

The black eye that Anwar appeared with in court when he was charged with corruption and sodomy shocked a nation, even those who were not comfortable with Anwar's politics.

And the comedy, or maybe tragedy is a better word, of errors continued.

Affidavits, depicting in lurid detail sexual accounts allegedly involving him, were leaked to the public and the Press even before they were filed in court.

A stained mattress on which these sexual acts were allegedly performed was brought to court.

A VCD of interviews with witnesses accusing Anwar of sexual acts found its way into the market. Police interrogated Anwar's friends and business contacts.

It became too much for even the most neutral person to bear and many people were angered.

From the black eye incident onwards, the authorities bungled, one after another. So much so, that people began wondering whether it was really a conspiracy as Anwar and his supporters claimed.

Therefore, when Anwar's lawyer, Karpal Singh, and wife, Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Ismail, accused the Government of trying to poison Anwar with arsenic, people wondered whether it was really true.

There was worldwide concern and condemnation of the Malaysian authorities then but eventually, as Anwar proved when he went home on Thursday, the claims of arsenic poisoning were certainly not true.

Maybe even Dr Wan Azizah, a wife and mother who many Malaysians sympathised with, was ready to believe the worst after she saw the beating her husband had received.

The negative perceptions that had formed saw the ruling Barisan Nasional suffer in the 1999 general election.

Although it still won 75 per cent of the seats, its popular votes dropped drastically and it lost control of two States - Kelantan and Terengganu - to an opposition alliance of Pas, the Democratic Action Party and Wan Azizah's Parti Keadilan.

That, for many middle of the road Malaysians, was their payback to Dr Mahathir's BN and Umno. For, after all, Dr Mahathir was the central target of the attacks.

He was the man who sacked Anwar for allegedly being a homosexual. The "Mahathir" police beat him up; the "Mahathir-controlled" judiciary was trying Anwar; and the "Mahathir administration" prosecuted him.

Dr Mahathir's reasons for sacking Anwar were that he believed Anwar was not fit to succeed him in a Malaysia where Islam is the official religion and where homosexuality is taboo.

But in 1998, when Malaysia was mired in a severe economic downturn amidst its currency crisis, Dr Mahathir was viewed as a leader fighting for his survival and Anwar's sacking was seen by some, and the numbers grew as the bungling continued, as a move to remove his strongest rival and cling on to power.

Anwar is a consummate politician. Malaysians knew that even before he was sacked and arrested. And he continued to fight the battle on a political platform, even in court.

He capitalised on the injustices done to him - the beating, the obvious transgression of due process in releasing affidavits, the harassment of his friends, the public humiliation and the unwitting roll out of all this in front of a wife and six children who were innocent.

It was easy to sympathise with Anwar. He was young, a good orator, good looking, witty, knew what to say to different audiences and, most of all, he symbolised success.

He was, after all, a bohemian, an idealistic student leader who clawed his way up to become Deputy Prime Minister.

But there were also many who did not like his politics. When his supporters attempted to embarrass Dr Mahathir into resigning by talking about "cronyism, corruption and collusion" in the awarding of government projects at the 1998 Umno general assembly, the equally astute politician in Dr Mahathir turned the tables on him by releasing a whole list of contracts which Anwar's friends and family had received.

All of Malaysia read this list and all of Malaysia knew that there was a move by Anwar to oust Dr Mahathir, the man who had brought Anwar into Umno to contest the 1982 general election.

But because of Anwar's attempted challenge in 1997, it was easy to believe that Dr Mahathir "got rid" of Anwar to save his own position.

Rahim Noor, a man respected by his policemen for looking after their interests, but feared by others for his hair-trigger temper, was easy to be reviled, especially after what he did to Anwar.

Rahim paid the price for his inexcusable viciousness by losing his job, going to jail and now living life almost as a recluse.

That one unforgivable act caused Rahim everything he had worked for all his life. Maybe, history will also not forget that Rahim had also served his nation by engineering the surrender of the Communist Party of Malaya that had killed thousands of our people, policemen and soldiers in its 41- year insurgency.

But not many could sympathise with him after the black-eye affair that also damaged Malaysia's reputation internationally. Yes, Rahim has paid the price and will continue to pay for it for the rest of his days.

Dr Mahathir faced the fallout of all these bungling and watched as US Vice-President Al Gore, a man caught up in the popular sentiment of the day, humiliated Malaysia by snubbing and insulting him and encouraging the reformasi demonstrations which were keeping Malaysians at home in fear almost every night.

After staving off the currency crisis, after being reviled both by his countrymen and the international community in the initial years following Anwar's incarceration, the revitalised economy and the resulting feel-good factor saw support slowly returning to both Dr Mahathir and Umno.

He chose Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as his deputy, to replace Anwar, and just when his popularity peaked again, in June 2002, he confounded the world by announcing his retirement from politics and announcing Abdullah as his successor.

For a time, those who had continued to believe that his act of sacking Anwar was because he wanted to cling on to power, still speculated that Dr Mahathir would change his mind and that Abdullah, just like Anwar and Tan Sri Musa Hitam before that, would not succeed to the prime ministership.

It did not work out that way. Dr Mahathir retired on Oct 31 last year and Abdullah became Prime Minister.

Did he pick a worthy successor in Abdullah?

Time will tell; but if initial indicators are anything to go by, it must be remembered that six months into the job of Prime Minister, Abdullah went to the hustings, asking for Malaysians to support him and his agenda.

Malaysians gave the Abdullah-led BN its best ever victory since independence in the March 2004 general election, winning more than 90 per cent of the seats in Parliament, winning back Terengganu and coming within a whisker of defeating Pas in Kelantan.

All Keadilan got was one parliamentary seat which Dr Wan Azizah won in Permatang Pauh..

After Anwar's release, opposition party leaders, including Anwar, and NGOs heaped praises on Abdullah, saying he was genuine about reforms. Their interpretation was Abdullah had restored the independence of the judiciary.

But why should people be surprised? Abdullah had told the judges when he had dinner with them shortly after he took office as Prime Minister that they must preserve the independence of the judiciary and act without fear or favour.

Anwar, Lim Kit Siang, Karpal Singh, the NGOs and critics who had opposed Dr Mahathir welcomed the Federal Court's judgment that overturned Anwar's sodomy conviction and nine-year jail term because the prosecution had not proved the case beyond reasonable doubt.

The impression one would have got from their comments was that there was meddling with the judiciary under the Mahathir administration. Was there meddling?

The two judges who ruled to free Anwar - Justice Abdul Hamid Mohamad and Justice Tengku Datuk Baharuddin Shah Tengku Mahmud - were both appointed when Dr Mahathir was Prime Minister.

Hamid, when delivering the majority judgment, spoke about the bunglings of the authorities - the beating up of Anwar; the length of time Anwar's adopted brother Sukma Dermawan was interrogated before making a confession, leading to doubts whether the confession was voluntary; key witness Azizan Abu Bakar's failure to remember exact dates and times of the alleged incident.

He ruled that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.

What Hamid said was something many Malaysians who had followed the court case also perceived. But what Hamid and Baharuddin also said was that they found evidence to confirm that Anwar and Sukma were involved in homosexual activities.

The judgment reads:

" ... we find evidence to confirm that the appellants (Anwar and Sukma) were involved in homosexual activities and we are more inclined to believe that the alleged incident in Tivoli Villa did happen (at) sometime."

However, the judges said there was no conclusive evidence to suggest that the incident happened at the time and place as stated in the charges and this raised doubts. As such, they had to free the two appellants.

What the judges are saying is that after having gone through the evidence, they, like Dr Mahathir who says he interviewed Anwar's accusers himself, believe that Anwar and Sukma "were involved in homosexual activities".

Rahim has paid his price; the judiciary is deemed to have regained its credibility; and Dr Mahathir's stated reasons for sacking Anwar are backed up by all the judges.

Generally, Malaysians are pleased to put a close to this divisive issue and Anwar is a free man, and, his wife and family have their husband and father back after a long time.

Many people have been hurt because of this issue the last six years. Friends have become enemies; brothers have fought sisters; the reputation of the country has been dragged through mud.

Nothing can wipe away the pain some people may still feel; nothing can give Anwar back that lofty position he held six years ago; nothing can give Rahim the respectability he once enjoyed.

But it is time to move on; close this ugly chapter in our history, no matter how the future interprets it, and get on with life, hoping that we have all learnt our lessons. If not, then it will be another tragedy for us and our country.

Kalimullah concluded by saying to bury the past and move on. It only means to ask Abdullah to unite with Anwar. Does anyone remember Anwar making a beeline to Abdullah's Kepala Batas home on his first Hari Raya as a free man?

Defending MBf, bailing out MBf and asking Abdullah to befriend Anwar. What does that tell you? All we need is more from recent events.