Anwar awarded $1.2 million in libel suit

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Malaysia's High Court has awarded former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim $1.2 million in damages over a pamphlet that called him corrupt and a homosexual.

The pamphlet, "Fifty Reasons Why Anwar Ibrahim Cannot Be Prime Minister," circulated in 1998, is believed to have led to Anwar's being fired from his position and being imprisoned in 2000 on charges of corruption and sodomy.

The latter conviction was eventually overturned, and he was released from jail a year ago. Anwar began the libel suit when he was still prime minister.

Judge Hishamuddin Yunus said the amount awarded was unusually high to reflect the gravity of the allegations and the lack of an apology, the BBC reported Thursday.

The pamphlet's author, Khalid Jafri, is critically ill in a Kuala Lumpur hospital. He is currently on bail pending his appeal against a one-year jail term for writing the leaflet.

The pamphlet was widely circulated at the height of political and economic turmoil that gripped Malaysia in 1998, when some of Anwar's supporters were urging him to replace Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.