By Hannah Belcher, CNN
(CNN) -- The judge in the sodomy trial of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim handed him a key victory Tuesday when he ruled that DNA taken from items Anwar used in his police jail cell is inadmissible.
Authorities had hoped to swipe DNA taken from a toothbrush, water bottle and hand towel in Anwar's cell -- and compare it with the DNA recovered from semen left in his accuser's body.
"None of their witnesses gave evidence that Anwar drank from the bottle of water or used the towel or toothbrush," said defense lawyer Sankara Nair. "The items were taken from the police cell and anybody could have used them. So the evidence was lacking from the start."
"If the prosecutors can't link Anwar's DNA to the boy's body semen, which is the main crux of the case, then they don't have a case," she added. "So that's why we feel a big chunk of the case is gone."
Sodomy, even if consensual, is punishable by 20 years in prison in the majority-Muslim country. Anwar has pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Investigators arrested Anwar in July 2008 -- four months after a loose coalition of opposition parties he led made gains on the ruling party in parliamentary elections.
"I don't believe that I'm going to get a fair trial," Anwar told CNN in February 2010. "A fair trial would require a competent, independent judge to immediately strike out the charge because any sexual assault must have a case to support the charge."
Anwar has called his arrest a "dirty trick and conspiracy" orchestrated by authorities who are trying to discredit him.
"They think that by doing this they can frustrate the opposition because they think the coalition will be more fragile without me," said Anwar, who oversees a multiethnic opposition alliance and his own Justice Party. "Clearly they have underestimated the commitment of the (parties)."
The U.S. State Department has said that Anwar's arrest "raises serious questions and concerns."
Anwar was the heir apparent to former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad until 1998, when he was sacked and charged for corruption and sodomy. Anwar spent six years in prison after being convicted on corruption charges in 1999 and on sodomy charges involving his wife's former driver in 2000.
Malaysia's highest court overturned the sodomy conviction and ordered him released from prison in 2004. However, the corruption verdict was never lifted, barring him from running for political posts until 2008.
A loose coalition of opposition parties -- with Anwar at the helm -- won 82 of 222 parliamentary seats in elections in March of that year. It was the second time in the country's history that the ruling party failed to gain the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution.
Anwar has said the investigators trying to build a case against him are the same ones who hid evidence that could have cleared him in his sodomy-related conviction in 1999.