Malaysian
ex-leader Mahathir unfazed by threat of defamation suit

Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad on Wednesday brushed aside a threat by his ex-deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, to sue him for calling Anwar a homosexual. "If he wants to sue me or not, that is his right," Mahathir was quoted as saying by the national news agency Bernama. "Under the law, he can do" it. Mahathir had recently reiterated that he'd fired Anwar in 1988 because Anwar's alleged sexual orientation made him unfit for office. Anwar said Tuesday he was "shocked" by Mahathir's remarks on the issue at a human rights meeting earlier this month and that he would "not allow this lie and slander to continue." Anwar's lawyer, Sankara Nair, said he would send Mahathir a letter this week demanding a retraction, apology, and damages of $26.7 million. Anwar plans to sue if Mahathir fails to respond after two weeks, Nair said. After Anwar was fired, he was arrested, tried for alleged corruption and sodomy, and sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison before a successful appeal against the sodomy charge set him free last year. Anwar had already served a separate sentence for corruption. Some critics of the government accused Mahathir of firing his popular, charismatic deputy due to Anwar's rising popularity and the two men's disagreements about how to handle Asia's 1997-1998 financial crisis. Even though Anwar was legally cleared of sodomy charges, Mahathir said that he remains confident that the decision to oust him from Malaysia's ruling party was warranted and that Anwar had been involved in homosexual acts, which are illegal in Malaysia, a predominately Muslim country. "This is not the case [of] whether the court decides," Bernama quoted Mahathir as saying. "This [sacking Anwar] is our decision. We are convinced, and we acted on the information that we had." Anwar had earlier filed a slander suit against Mahathir in 1998, when Mahathir described Anwar's alleged homosexual acts at a news conference. The Malaysian high court dismissed the suit in 1999, saying it was a frivolous abuse of the legal process. (AP)