By Bill Tarrant
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian opposition leader AnwarIbrahim, accused of homosexual assault, planned to leadsupporters to a police station on Tuesday to complain evidencewas cooked up against him on similar charges a decade ago.
Police are investigating the former deputy premier forsodomising a 23-year-old aide, the same charge that landed himin jail for six years before the Federal Court overturned thatconviction in 2004.
The allegation surfaced as the revitalised opposition underAnwar was making moves to engineer parliamentary defectionsaimed at bringing down Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi'sgovernment.
Anwar planned to lead hundreds of his supporters to asuburban Kuala Lumpur police station on Tuesday afternoon tofile a report saying the current police chief and attorneygeneral fabricated evidence against him in the 1998 sodomy casewhen they were part of a team that investigated and prosecutedhim.
The events in the political arena weighed on Malaysia'sfinancial markets, with foreign exchange dealers saying theysuspected the central bank had stepped in to support theringgit currency against the dollar.
"Seems foreigners are not willing to touch this currency inthe short term until political news is gone," one Kuala Lumpurdealer said.
Malaysian shares also weakened Tuesday, with the benchmarkindex down 0.57 percent at the midday break.
Anwar, who took refuge in the Turkish embassy for 36 hoursuntil Monday evening fearing for his security, said the newallegation was a conspiracy to thwart his return to parliament.
His lawyers filed a defamation suit against his accuser.His political party says the aide, Saiful Bukhari Azlan, wasplanted in their camp by people close to the ruling NationalFront.
Anwar said he had planned to announce this week he wouldcontest a parliamentary by-election. Winning a seat would bethe first step on the road to his ambition of leading theopposition to power for the first time in Malaysian history.
The loose opposition alliance made historic gains in theMarch 8 general election, winning five of 13 state governmentsand coming within 30 seats of taking control of the 222-memberparliament.
POLITICAL TEMPESTS
The allegations have overshadowed other political tempestsin Malaysia, including challenges to Abdullah's leadership,public anger over price rises, the deputy prime minister'sdenials of a link to a Mongolian model's murder case, andformer premier Mahathir Mohamad being investigated for fixingjudicial appointments.
Abdullah's position appears to have strengthened with thislatest turn in Malaysia's political melodrama. The sodomy casewill likely halt, at least for awhile, Anwar's machinations tobring down his government, and his reputation as the "Mr Clean"of Malaysian of politics stands in contrast to all the mudflying around his rivals.
Abdullah has offered to meet Anwar's wife Wan Aziz WanIsmail late Tuesday afternoon to allay any concerns she mighthave, the prime minister's office said.
Neither the national police chief nor the attorney generalhave commented on the case. But other officials, including theprime minister and deputy prime minister, have strongly deniedthe government had anything at all to do with it.
Saiful, who was taken to hospital for examination, has beenreleased and is now under police protection, according to mediareports quoting his family.
But the Star newspaper on Tuesday quoted his uncle assaying government officials would not help when approachedabout his story and some police stations turned them away aswell when they tried to lodge a police report on the allegedsexual assault.
Federal criminal investigations chief Bakri Zinin has vowedto protect the accuser and accused and to conduct a fair andthorough investigation."
The United States cautioned against any politicallymotivated investigation into Anwar. State Department spokesmanTom Casey noted that Anwar had been convicted previously onsimilar sodomy charges that were overturned in court. "So wewould hope that there's not a pattern here."
Washington would be concerned about "anything that was apolitically motivated investigation or prosecution", he said.
(Additional reporting by Jalil Hamid; Editing by ValerieLee)
