Gobind Singh Deo, lawyer for Anwar's co-accused Sukma Darmawan, said the subpoena was served on Saturday and court records showed the premier had accepted it. Gobind said Mahathir, originally scheduled to testify Monday, did not appear because Anwar was still giving evidence.

``We will inform the Prime minister when we require his attendance in court,'' he told reporters during a break in the trial. ``We are confident that he will attend. We expect him to testify somewhere towards the end of this week or early next week.'' Asked if lawyers would seek to interview Mahathir before he gave evidence, Gobind said: ``We will definitely speak to the Prime minister before putting him on the stand.''

Mahathir told reporters last week he would appear in the high court if required but would only answer questions on the sodomy case and not on allegedconspiracies, since this was unrelated to the trial. He also said if lawyers wanted to interview him, ``I want to know what questions whether they are relevant to sodomy or not.''