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Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has pleaded not guilty at the start of his long-delayed sodomy trial.
Prosecutors say he sodomised a male aide, and they claim that traces of Mr Anwar's DNA were found in medical tests on the man making the allegations.
Mr Anwar has consistently denied the charges, calling them a conspiracy aimed at breaking his increasingly strong political movement.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Malaysia and he faces up to 20 years in prison.
Sarah Dingle of Radio Australia reports.
Anwar Ibrahim has seen all this before.
“So I've been charged of sodomy. Initially it was reported that it was forced, this was the police report, then when it came to the charges it was consensual then it went to the medical officers - there's no possibility conclusively of any tear or penetration. So you have the first case of a sexual case in nature in the world that you want to proceed without that. So that is the charge as it stands, clearly political.”
Less than 24 hours before this trial, Anwar Ibrahim says his defence team is hobbled. They'll go to court and ask once again for the release of key medical documents which allegedly show Mr Anwar's DNA taken from the body of the man who's accusing him of sodomy - a 24 year old former aide.
“The point is how do they got to prove whether they observe ground rules, whether the specimen was a valid one and whether the test is actually proper. We are saying if you say you claim it's true then let us check. Why can't you give us the specimen to counter check? You expect us to trust the system? Did the police take it? Yes. Did the police keep it with them for days? Yes. Why didn't the police surrender the specimen directly from the hospital to the chemistry department? Was it contaminated?”
Anwar Ibrahim has had considerable experience with Malaysian legal procedures.
“He fell foul of 'GOD', as we say - 'government of the day' - the powers that be, when he opposed the government in 1999. So it's really he's going into his 11th or 12th year now of being in the firing line of government action.”
Professor Clive Kessler from Australia is a long time observer of Malaysian politics. He says there's widespread disbelief amongst many Malaysians about the second round of sodomy charges. But Professor Kessler says for the government, the trial does serve a purpose.
“The consequence from the government's point of view, a government that's increasingly on the defensive, unable to cope with serious challenges and in tremendous disarray politically, it has the advantage of enabling them to look strong at least on one thing and to tie up the opposition to keep the opposition distracted. Anwar's case is extremely serious for Anwar himself, make no doubt about that, but the country is in tremendous disarray.”
Professor Kessler says communal tensions in Malaysia are on the rise, with recent issues such as the use of the term "Allah" by non-Muslims providing a flashpoint.
He says former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed is still a powerful figure in the political landscape.
“There are major issues over the burning of churches, and in retaliation the leaving of a pig's heads near mosques and in this situation former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir is in effect putting himself at the head of these Malay ethnocratic insurgents and this is an extremely serious situation. But it may in fact serve the government's purposes to have the Anwar trial as a sideshow and to get people fascinated with the sideshow.”
Rights groups have also criticised the trial. Amnesty International accused the government of using "the same old dirty tricks in an attempt to remove the opposition leader from politics".
There were huge protests after Mr Anwar's first conviction for sodomy a decade ago. He was freed on appeal in 2004.
