MALAYSIAKINI, a popular news website, on March 7th live-blogged the end of the proceedings in a court in Putrajaya, Malaysia’s administrative capital, hearing the government’s appeal against Anwar Ibrahim’s acquittal on a charge of sodomy. By its account, when the acquittal was overturned and Mr Anwar (pictured) was sentenced to five years in jail, the setback was greeted by his supporters at the scene almost as a victory for the opposition leader. Indeed it may yet turn out that way.

“Reformasi!” they cheered, the slogan of the movement Mr Anwar first led in 1998. Back then it fizzled when he was sent to jail on charges of corruption and, as it happens, sodomy. Homosexuality was illegal then as it is now in Malaysia. Then as now, too, prosecutions were rare. That first sodomy conviction, moreover, was overturned in 2004.

It is not just Mr Anwar’s supporters who see the latest verdict as politically motivated, and believe it may actually generate sympathy for him and the opposition.

The government, of course, insists the verdict has nothing to do with it: the courts are independent, and this is, said its statement, “a case between two individuals and is a matter for the courts, not the government.”

Quite so. But a number of things seem odd to the impartial observer. The alleged illegal act took place in June 2008. Three months earlier Mr Anwar, though still barred from political office because of his conviction, had helped the opposition to its best-ever performance in a general election, and he was about to contest (and, despite the accusation, win) a by-election to re-enter parliament.

Mr Anwar’s accuser was a 24-year-old aide who, it later emerged, had met Najib Razak, then deputy prime minister (and, since 2009, prime minister), and his wife shortly before making his complaint. The trial was further complicated when the accuser was himself accused of having a sexual relationship with a (female) member of the prosecution team. The reason for Mr Anwar’s acquittal, however, was the prosecution’s mishandling of the DNA evidence. The accuser’s father later apologised to Mr Anwar at a press conference that his son had become embroiled in a conspiracy against him.

Almost as soon as Mr Anwar was acquitted, in January 2012, the government’s attorney-general launched an appeal. But Mr Anwar carried on as the most successful opposition leader Malaysia has had in over half a century of independence. In May last year the three-party coalition he leads won the popular vote in a general election, though it was still left with a minority of seats. It has alleged that it was cheated out of an historic victory not just by the gerrymandering which has distorted Malaysia’s electoral arithmetic for years, but by outright cheating.

That the government’s appeal against Mr Anwar’s acquittal has reached its climax at this moment is, to be charitable, an extraordinary coincidence. On March 23rd Mr Anwar was to contest a by-election for a seat in the legislative assembly in one of Malaysia’s states, Selangor. He was expected to win, and to take on the high-profile role of the state’s chief minister. His conviction seems to mean he will be disqualified, although he is free on bail pending an appeal.

Certainly, many of Malaysia’s bloggers, who fulminate with a freedom the staid, establishment-owned, traditional media eschew, see Mr Anwar as the victim of a political vendetta (see, for example, the damning assessment of The Malaysian Insider, one of Malaysia’s best online newspapers).

The government, however, sees all this as nothing to do with it. On the eve of the verdict, the prime minister’s foreign-media adviser was in touch with The Economist to alert us to a “major intervention” Mr Najib was to make on March 7th on the economy, tackling difficult issues of subsidies and sales tax. He thought it would make a “Najib vows to stay the economic course in spite of domestic criticism” type story.

How frustrating for him that the independent judiciary has provided a much stronger story that will for a while eclipse efforts to change the subject.