On August 15, after an associate of jailed former Deputy...

On August 15, after an associate of jailed former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said boxes of government documents were being held overseas to expose malpractice, Ibrahim Ali, a deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department, said he would propose the introduction of a Treason Act - carrying the death penalty - to cover illegal possession of classified material at the next meeting of the Supreme Council of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the dominant government party. Passage of such a law with retrospective effect could lead to Anwar facing a capital charge on top of the sodomy offense for which he is now being tried in the High Court. In April, he was sentenced to 6 years in jail after being convicted of corruption. Anwar, despite his imprisonment, has produced a number of official documents claiming to support his allegations of misconduct by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and members of his cabinet. Mr Ibrahim said people convicted under the new law should be given the death sentence because treason was more dangerous than drug trafficking, which is a capital offense.