Anwar is still a convict, subject to prison rules, says Nur Jazlan
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ANWAR Ibrahim is still a convict and anyone who wants to visit him must get permission from the Prisons Department, said Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed.
He said this was the reason former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was not allowed to meet with Anwar at the Cheras Rehabilitation Hospital this evening.
Nur Jazlan said apart from family, others allowed to visit the inmates were their lawyer and those with a valid reason to visit.
“Dr Mahathir has no official reason to visit him.”
The deputy minister confirmed that the orders not to permit Dr Mahathir to visit Anwar today came from the Prisons Department.
Dr Mahathir earlier today was not allowed to meet Anwar at the hospital after staff told him that there were orders from above not to permit him.
Dr Mahathir was on Sunday announced as the opposition prime minister and this was to have been his first visit to the PKR de facto leader.
Anwar’s daughter had earlier questioned the Prisons Department’s logic in stopping Dr Mahathir but allowing Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Aziz to meet Anwar last year.
“Certain individuals like Cabinet Minister Nazri Aziz were allowed in. There is no consistency,” she said at the Rehabilitation Hospital in Cheras today
Nur Jazlan today clarified that Nazri was visiting Anwar on the cabinet’s behalf and that whether inmates were allowed visitors was at the discretion of the Prisons Department.
“That (Nazri’s visit) was because he was given permission to visit. It is the Prisons Department’s jurisdiction to decide who can or cannot visit. Nazri has already said he was representing the Cabinet ministers.
“It also is up to the Prisons director general who controls the life of prisoners.”
Nur Jazlan also denied that his ministry had anything to do with the matter.
“What proof (that it is the Home Ministry)?”
Anwar has also received visits from Prime Minister Najib Razak and his deputy, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, since he was hospitalised last November.
The former PKR president is undergoing surgery for an injury he sustained when the Prisons Department vehicle he was in crashed into another vehicle last September. – January 10, 2018.