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| Anwar leaving court soon after his acquittal. |
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 9 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was once one of Asia’s fastest-rising political stars, a popular reformer whose image fronted Time magazine in 1997 as “The Future of Asia” — a status knocked down a year later when he was charged with corruption and sodomy.
Today, a court acquitted him of second set of sodomy charges in a decision that will continue the remarkable comeback of the charismatic 64-year-old father of six, who first rose to prominence in the 1970s as a student radical.
Anwar had once been tipped to take over from then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. But in 1998, in the wake of a campaign in Malaysia to root out corruption following the Asian financial crisis, his mentor sacked him as deputy prime minister and finance minister and levelled the first set of charges that would derail his ascent.
The rise again of reformer Anwar
