Mr Ezam said the letter was the one that his former boss had directed him to deliver personally to Dr Mahathir two days after Mr Anwar was sacked as deputy prime minister.

The letter, claimed Mr Ezam, was Mr Anwar's attempt to make peace with the then prime minister so that he would be reappointed.

The handwritten letter, which Ezam read aloud at a ceramah (public address) at Kampung Kubang Parit here on Wednesday night, was basically a letter of thanks to Dr Mahathir.

Among other things, it allegedly said that whatever happened to Mr Anwar and his family, he and his wife Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail would never forget the love and care that Dr Mahathir had showed them.

Almost the entire content of the letter was in that vein.

According to Mr Ezam, Mr Anwar had directed him to ensure that the letter was personally handed over to Dr Mahathir before he attended a meeting with all Umno division leaders at Putra World Trade Centre on Sept 8, 1998.

'Anwar had directed me to make sure that the letter was delivered by hand to Dr Mahathir before he left for the meeting as he feared that the prime minister would produce witnesses for his alleged misconduct at the gathering.

'However, I was a few minutes late and by the time I reached the Prime Minister's Department, Dr Mahathir had already left,' he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Anwar had yet to make public a letter which his party PKR claimed Mr Ezam had written to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi demanding that he be given a minister's post as an inducement for him to join Umno.

Mr Ezam had challenged Mr Anwar to produce the alleged letter at least two days before polling for the Kuala Terengganu by-election on Jan 17, or resign from Malaysian politics within seven days.

If Mr Anwar failed to do that, Mr Ezam said he would consider other options, including suing his former boss for slander. -- THE STAR/ANN