Malaysia not ensuring medical care to Anwar Ibrahim: MP
Opposition figure serving as Ibrahim’s lawyer says gov’t has gone back on pledge to US to provide medical care to imprisoned leader
A senior Malaysian opposition figure accused the government Thursday of not fulfilling its promise to U.S. President Barack Obama to ensure that imprisoned former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim received proper medical care.
"Anwar Ibrahim is still not being given access to proper medical attention," Sivarasa Rasiah, who serves as Ibrahim’s lawyer and as vice president of the People's Justice Party he founded, told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Ibrahim was sentenced to five years jail in February for sodomizing his former aide -- a case his supporters consider politically motivated and aimed at stopping him standing in the 2018 general election.
Sivarasa expressed concern Thursday that Ibrahim’s condition had deteriorated to a “worrying state,” accusing the federal government of going back on its pledge to Obama during a summit in Kuala Lumpur last November to look after his health.
He said Ibrahim has been suffering from a torn muscle in his shoulder that needs to receive intensive physiotherapy treatment three times a week.
"Instead of allowing him to go to a hospital to seek immediate intensive physiotherapy treatment for three times a week, the government has limited his access to only once in two weeks,” he added.
"Even then, the doctors visit him in the prison as he is not allowed to go to a hospital.”
Last November, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak had agreed to Obama’s public request that Ibrahim be provided with all appropriate medical care for his shoulder muscle tear.
Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has also been reported as saying that Ibrahim was given all necessary medical attention.
Ibrahim, a former deputy prime minister and parliamentary opposition leader, has denied the charges under which he was imprisoned, repeatedly insisting that they are baseless and a political vendetta against his image.
He has been the main opponent of the ruling party – which has been in power from the time of independence in 1957 – since falling out with the government in the late 1990s.
The 2013 election saw his opposition coalition come close to unseating the government in what Ibrahim dubbed the "worst electoral fraud in our history”.
