KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 (AFP) - The judge who jailed Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim for six years favoured prosecution over defence witnesses during his corruption trial, lawyers handling the sacked deputy premier's appeal said Wednesday.

Gurbachan Singh said Judge Augustine Paul's judgement was "contaminated by a patently wrong finding of facts, by misreading and misappreciating the evidence."

Anwar is appealing against his conviction last April on four counts of corruption -- abusing his official postion to cover up allegations of sexual misconduct -- and against the sentence.

The former heir apparent to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad says the charges stem from a high-level political conspiracy while the government says the courts are independent.

Gurbachan told the court on the third day of the appeal that Paul "made mountains out of molehills in minor inconsistencies by defence witnesses while he completely ignored material contradictions by prosecution witnesses.

"It is a very serious misdirection to treat the defence witnesses different from prosecution witnesses."

Gurbachan said Paul's "judgement was most unsatisfactory, unsafe and ought not to stand."

The hearing was continuing Wednesday.

Anwar, 52, was sacked by Mahathir on September 2, 1998. He was detained 18 days later, initially under an act allowing detention without trial, after leading mass anti-government protests.

He is separately on trial for sodomy, a crime punishable by up to 20 years.