“The road to freedom is long,” he told reporters soon after the five-man bench unanimously rejected his review application.

He claimed the ruling was a continuation of a conspiracy to deny him justice through the courts.

“I cannot say I was optimistic on today’s outcome and you can see that from my demeanour. Anyway, nobody here talked about a ruling in my favour,” he said.

Anwar, the former opposition leader, said he would discuss with his lawyers about other legal processes and constitutional means to secure his freedom.

Earlier, Chief Judge of Malaya Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin said there was no bias, procedural unfairness or breach of natural justice or wrong evaluation of evidence to allow Anwar’s review application.

He said there was no evidence to show that there had been any communication between the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Federal Court either prior or subsequent to last year’s Federal Court decision to convict Anwar.

“The affidavit-in-reply of Tengku Sarifuddin Tengku Ahmad, a director of the Media Division in the PMO, confirmed this fact,” he said.

Zulkefli said there was nothing credible other than the mere assertion of Anwar that the said statement from the PMO had given the impression to the public that he had not received a fair trial.

Zulkefli said Anwar’s contention that ad-hoc prosecutor Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had been biased and had misconducted himself was also misplaced.

He said Shafee was appointed to appear for the government in the Court of Appeal and Federal Court as Anwar had claimed the Attorney-General’s Chambers was biased towards him.

“The Federal Court in their decision found that Shafee was a fit and proper person under the Criminal Procedure Code and there was no evidence tendered by the applicant (Anwar) to prove conflict of interest,” he said.

The bench also dismissed the submission by Anwar’s lawyers that the Federal Court had relied on inadmissible evidence to convict their client.

Zulkefli said the defence had raised the point that the integrity of the crime scene had been compromised by the prosecution as no carpet had been found in the condominium unit where the alleged sodomy had taken place.

“The Federal Court, in its judgment, had stated that the issue of how the carpet had moved to another apartment was not critical to the prosecution’s case in light of other compelling evidence,” he said.

The bench also said there was no serious miscarriage of justice when the defence claimed that there had been a break in the chain of evidence and tampering of exhibits.

He said these were findings of facts by the court and reasons had been given.