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Words
in the News |
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INTRO
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Anwar
Ibrahim, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, was convicted
of charges of abusing his powers of office. We heard from Simon Ingram,
the BBC’s Correspondent in Kuala Lumpur, and from Dr Wan Azizah
Wan Ismail, Anwar Ibrahim's wife. |
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IN
FULL
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Listen
to the report in full |
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15th April 1999
The verdict in the
longest trial in Malaysian history.
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1 |
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In
passing judgement, Justice Augustine Paul said Anwar Ibrahim had
clearly abused his powers of office by directing members of the police
special branch to obtain retractions from two individuals who had
made allegations of his sexual misconduct. It was a very serious offence,
the judge said, for someone occupying such a high office. The
six year prison sentence drew brief protests from members of Mr Anwar’s
family sitting on the public benches. In a statement to the court,
the former deputy prime minister said he’d been dealt a judgement
that stank to high heaven. The conviction, he went on, was
according to the script written by his political foes in the
government. |
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WORDS
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in passing judgement:
in a legal sense, the judge in court passes a judgement or gives
a verdict
high office: a
term meaning a senior position in government or in an organisation
that stank to high
heaven: if something stinks it means it is particularly unpleasant,
scandalous or contemptible; to high heaven means to the furthest
extreme
according to the script:
if something is done according to a script or plan it happens exactly
in the way that plan or script says it should
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2 |
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The Anwar Ibrahim factor
actually opened the eyes and hearts of people and especially
the mass movement that has sprung from this situation and
this predicament and this tragic event that has revolved around
Anwar Ibrahim. But not only him - it goes beyond that. It’s
not Anwar Ibrahim the man but the opening of the eyes of the people
against whatever is happening.
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factor: a factor
is something which affects a situation
opened the eyes and
hearts: if you open someone's eyes you make them aware of something
for the first time; if you open someone's heart you touch their
feelings
sprung from this situation:
if one thing springs from another, the second thing results from
the first
it goes beyond that:
the situation has developed into something bigger than simply one
man's fight for justice.
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Read
about the background in BBC News Online |
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