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Resistance See other Resistance Articles Title: Mahathir to form war crimes tribunal Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad says a war crimes tribunal will be created to investigate potential abuses in Iraq, Lebanon, and the occupied Palestinian territories. 'We think that it is time we set up a body, a tribunal, which will give an opportunity for these people to bring up their complaints to be heard,' he said Wednesday. Mahathir says a war crimes commission would be established in conjunction with the tribunal to investigate allegations. Five Malaysian legal experts would join him on the commission. The tribunal, he says, would be staffed by former judges and law professors from Malaysia and abroad, including a Malaysian former chief justice. 'The one punishment that most leaders are afraid of is to go down in history with a certain label attached to them,' Mahathir said. 'In history books they should be written down as war criminals and this is the kind of punishment we can make to them.' 'We cannot arrest them, we cannot detain them, and we cannot hang them the way they hanged Saddam Hussein,' he added. The commission will start work as early as next week with meetings planned to hear from alleged victims of the conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Mahathir served as prime minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003. He was generally believed to have modernized Malaysia but became embroiled in a series of controversies during his tenure. He took a hard line against Israel and the Jewish community. He caused a stir soon after coming to office by refusing to allow the New York Philharmonic perform works by the Jewish composer Ernest Bloch during a visit to Malaysia. As a result the orchestra refused to play in the country. He also accused Jews of being behind the collapse of the Malaysian ringgit during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Mahathir's biggest controversy, and one that could come back to haunt him in his current pursuits, involved the sacking of his Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in 1998. Anwar was prosecuted and ultimately jailed for several years on sodomy and abuse of power charges. The trial was condemned internationally. The government at first alleged a sodomy had occurred inside a building that had not been constructed at the time of the alleged act. Nonetheless Anwar was found guilty and sentenced to six years for corruption of power, and 9 years for sodomy. The convictions were overturned in 2004 after Mahathir had left office, and Anwar was released.
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