Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was acquitted on Monday in a sodomy trial he had denounced as a politically motivated fabrication, the latest twist in the 64-year-old's turbulent life.
Following is a chronology of key events in Anwar's career:
1998
-- September: After a meteoric rise up the ranks of Malaysia's ruling party, deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is sacked following a power struggle with his boss Mahathir Mohamad and hit with charges of sodomy and corruption that he denounces as false.
1999
-- April: Found guilty of corruption and sentenced to six years in jail.
2000
-- August: Found guilty of sodomy and sentenced to nine years in prison.
2004
-- September: Released after Malaysia's highest court overturns the sodomy conviction.
2008
-- March: Leads a resurgent opposition to stunning breakthrough in general elections, seizing five states and a third of parliamentary seats. Beleaguered Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi says later he will hand over power to his deputy Najib Razak in mid-2010.
-- April: A ban on holding public office, which was related to his corruption conviction, expires.
-- April: A ban on holding public office, which was related to his corruption conviction, expires.
-- June: Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, a 23-year-old volunteer at his office, lodges a police report claiming Anwar sodomised him.
-- July 31: Anwar announces he will contest parliamentary by-election in his home state of Penang after his wife resigns from the seat to make way for him.
-- August 7: Anwar is charged with sodomy, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years' imprisonment.
-- August 28: Two days after winning a landslide by-election victory, Anwar is sworn in to parliament and declared leader of the opposition.
2010
-- February 1: After numerous delays, Anwar's new sodomy trial begins.
2011
-- July 9: Anwar suffers a bruise on his head and a cut on his leg after police fire tear gas at protesters demanding election reforms.
-- August 22: Opening his defence, Anwar gives a statement from the dock rejecting the sodomy charges against him as a government fabrication aimed at sending him to "political oblivion".
2012
-- January 3-8: Anwar tours several states across the country in a last-ditch bid for public support, reassert his innocence and reject the sodomy charge as false.
-- January 9: Anwar pronounced not guilty by a Kuala Lumpur judge. Declaring "justice has been served", Anwar vows to topple Prime Minister Najib's ruling coalition in the next elections due by March 2013.