 News Makers
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-03 07:38 Most believe Anwar is innocent: Poll Opinion polls show most people believe Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim did not commit sodomy against an aide after he was jailed on a similar charge seen as politically motivated before it was overturned.
A small survey by the independent Merdeka Center research firm found just 6 percent of respondents believed the allegations, and nearly 60 percent viewed it as politically motivated. "It's going to be an uphill battle for the government because you are facing a more cynical public," said the firm's pollster, Ibrahim Suffian.The survey polled 225 ethnic Malays aged 20 and above. A separate survey by the independent news website, Malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com), showed that 94.4 percent of its respondents believed the allegation was part of a political conspiracy against Anwar. More than 7,000 people turned up at an impromptu rally late on Tuesday night in the biggest show of support for Anwar since the aide complained to police at the weekend about an alleged assault at a luxury Kuala Lumpur apartment last Thursday. Police have yet to question Anwar, who has dismissed the allegation as a top-level political conspiracy to keep him from standing for parliament, and to stymie his campaign aimed at wooing defectors from the ruling National Front coalition. Man suspected in 8 murders arrested An Illinois man suspected in a killing spree in which eight people, ranging from a 2-year-old boy to a 93-year-old man, were beaten or hacked to death was captured by police outside a bar, authorities said yesterday.
Nicholas Sheley, a 28-year-old day laborer, was apprehended on Tuesday outside a bar in Granite City, Illinois, near St. Louis, Missouri, after patrons recognized him from televised news reports and flagged down police. Sheley was initially charged in a June 14 break-in at a woman's house near his hometown of Sterling, in western Illinois. The FBI on Monday announced the manhunt for the "armed and dangerous" Sheley after four bodies were discovered in an apartment in a nearby town. The victims included the toddler, his mother and two other men, police said. The FBI said all eight victims died from "blunt force trauma," and the Chicago Tribune reported on its website that an ax was used in some of the murders. The 93-year-old man was believed to have been killed by Sheley a week earlier. Agencies (China Daily 07/03/2008 page10) |
