``I'm sorry for his wife and I think she did the right thing in supporting her husband because he is her husband,'' Mahathir said at a seminar in Tokyo referring to Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

``But now what Anwar's supporters are trying to do is to force the police to arrest his wife also by having her participate in the demonstration,'' he said.

Mahathir was apparently alluding to Azizah's brief appearance on Saturday at a rally of some 10,000 Anwar supporters in Kuala Lumpur.

She has been warned by police that she would be arrested if she tried to rally support for Anwar in public gatherings. "I hope the police won't arrest (her), but I don't know. That is the police's business,'' Mahathir said.

Azizah was accompanied by her eldest daughter, 17-year-old Nurul Izzah, who recentlyreturned from meetings abroad with Indonesian President B J Habibie and Philippine President Joseph Estrada to thank them for supporting her father.

Later on Saturday, Azizah read out Anwar's first political statement since his arrest on September 20 under the Internal Security Act for allegedly inciting public unrest.

In the statement, Anwar called Mahathir a "desperate'' man who "will resort to any means to cling to power''.