High court judge Augustine Paul permitted the defence to counter-attack after he had rocked the court by ordering one of the ousted finance minister's lawyers jailed for three months.

On the 17th day of the trial at the heart of Malaysia's simmering civil unrest, the defence scrambled to regain its balance after the judge's shock order yesterday.

Five of Anwar's nine lawyers were absent from the trial today, a day after Augustine ordered defence counsel Zainur Zakaria imprisoned for contempt of court.

Zainur won a reprieve from the court of appeal, which temporarily suspended the sentence pending a hearing on his appeal on Friday, and was locked in meetings with other attorneys on the controversy, legal sources said.

Anwar, sacked and arrested in September, has pleadednot guilty to five counts each of corruption and sodomy, saying he was the victim of a conspiracy by associates of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to destroy his political career.