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Anwar judge gags press

Setting the trial date for 7 June, Judge Abdul Wahab Patail also barred lawyers from talking to journalists about the trial.

"No comment, interview or statement, other than a factual report of evidence or submissions in relation to the proceedings before the court or any matter related to it, is permitted to be published in any form," he said in a five-page statement read to the court.

Any reporter breaching the order would be barred from the court, he said.

He also instructed lawyers to make no public comments on the trial.

Sodomy is a criminal offence in Malaysia, carrying a maximum prison term of 20 years and a mandatory whipping.

The sex charges were originally included and then dropped from Mr Anwar's corruption trial, which ended last month with a guilty verdict and a sentence of six years in jail.

The conviction, on four counts of corruption, drew widespread condemnation.

Mr Anwar still faces one remaining corruption count and five sodomy charges.

Two men confessed to sodomy with Mr Anwar while in police detention last September, but later denied it, saying they had been tortured.

The former minister has consistently argued he is the victim of a plot, stretching from Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad through the ranks of the police, to smear him and destroy his chances of ever attaining power.

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Internet Links

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