After 77 days of courtroom battle, which convulsed Malaysia's legal and political system, the trial of the sacked finance minister, Mr Anwar Ibrahim, ended yesterday, and a verdict will be announced on April 14th.
As Malaysia has no jury system, High Court Judge Augustine Paul, who presided over a fractious, incident-packed trial, will himself decide the verdict. His decision will shape Malaysia's political future, as any sentence longer than a year will neutralise Mr Anwar as a political force during next year's general elections.
The judge had originally set the verdict for April 6th but said yesterday: "It's simply impossible to decide by the 6th, so I have to set another date." He has already rejected the defence case that the charges were the result of a political conspiracy.
Right to the end of what became the longest trial in Malaysia's history, Mr Anwar proclaimed his innocence. His defence lawyers asserted that he was dismissed from government and thrown in jail as part of a plot by powerful figures and business interests close to the Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, to prevent him from exposing corruption and cronyism.
"I still maintain there is a political conspiracy involving Dr Mahathir and his close associates to politically assassinate me," Mr Anwar told reporters as the trial ended in Kuala Lumpur's High Court.
The 51-year-old reform-minded politician, who until September was prime minister-in-waiting and one of the highest-regarded Asian political figures, said he expected to receive a sentence of between two and four years in jail. "I'm realistic enough to accept the eventuality," he told reporters.
Mr Anwar is charged on four counts of abusing his power in 1997 by directing police to obtain retractions from two people who had accused him of sex crimes. Each carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail and a fine of around £3,000.
"This honourable court should find the accused guilty of the four charges as amended and to convict him accordingly," the government prosecutor, Mr Abdul Gani Patail, told the court yesterday.
The day of the verdict will be tense in Kuala Lumpur, a modern, normally peaceful, sub-tropical city which witnessed weeks of demonstrations last autumn after the arrest of Mr Anwar. Crowds who regular gathered to chant "reformasi!" (reform), were just as routinely broken up by police with water cannon.
Dr Mahathir accused his onetime deputy of trying to unseat him by stirring up the type of student unrest which brought about the downfall of President Suharto in Indonesia in May. The 73-year-old prime minister also called Mr Anwar morally unfit for office.
Public anger and international concern at the treatment of Mr Anwar were heightened when he appeared in court on the first day of the trial with a black eye, the result of a beating by the former British colony's chief of police, who subsequently was forced to resign.
Several charges of sodomy against Mr Anwar in the original indictment were dropped, but not before some dramatic scenes in court, including the presentation of a semen-stained mattress in evidence. The defence team and the bench clashed several times, and last week Judge Augustine rejected their request that he disqualify himself from the case on the grounds he was partial.
Before being led into custody, Mr Anwar hugged his eldest daughter, Ms Nurul Izzah (19), as family members and friends watched from the gallery.