[JURIST] Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim [BBC profile] was granted a furlough on Sunday to leave prison so that he could attend his father’s funeral. Anwar was taken from the prison under heavy security to his father’s house and will have to return to prison after the burial. His father, who died Sunday morning and whose cause of death is still unknown, was 96 years old. Anwar had just begun serving a five-year sentence his sodomy conviction was upheld [JURIST report] in February. Anwar was accused of sodomizing an aide in the opposition campaign office in 2008 in violation of Section 377B of the Malaysian Penal Code. The Federal Court rejected Anwar’s argument that the case was a political conspiracy, a decision rights groups are calling unjust.

Anwar has continually denied [JURIST report] the sodomy charge. The Kuala Lumpur High Court acquitted [JURIST report] Anwar in January 2012. In March 2014 an appeals court overturned the acquittal [JURIST report] and sentenced Anwar to five years in prison. The opposition leader was arrested in July 2008 after he filed a lawsuit against his accuser [JURIST reports] a month earlier. In December 2010 Anwar filed a complaint [JURIST report] in a Malaysian court over a WikiLeaks cable published by Australian newspapers stating he had engaged in sodomy. Anwar was Malaysia’s deputy prime minister under former Mahathir Mohamad until he was fired in 1998 following earlier sodomy charges of which he was initially convicted but later acquitted. He reentered Malaysian politics following the expiration of a 10-year ban [JURIST report] against him for unrelated corruption charges.