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| Anwar Ibrahim |
The one minute and 47 second excerpt uploaded on Sunday is not explicit in itself but is part of a longer video showing a man having sex with a woman in a hotel room, local media have reported.
The man in the YouTube clip is said to closely resemble Anwar, although the former deputy premier today denied any involvement.
YouTube removed the clip today but by then it had spread to pro-government blogs and websites, according to the Star daily newspaper.
The Star said the YouTube clip showed a man in a towel with another man dressed in a shirt and trousers while a woman with Chinese features is seen sitting on a bed.
In the longer video, the man in the towel reportedly has sex with the woman after the other man leaves the room.
"The face of the towel-clad, pudgy-looking man in short hair can be seen several times. He, however, does not stand in place long enough for his face to be clearly identified," the Starreported.
Anwar told online news portal Malaysiakini that he was not the man in the video.
"Now, the video has been distributed. And whether the person looks like me or not, I don't care. It wasn't me," he was quoted as saying by the website.
Three men have claimed they obtained the tape, but two of them said they handed it over to police and were not responsible for the clip posted on YouTube, according to Malaysiakini.
Police spokesmen were unavailable for comment.
Last week, police chief Ismail Omar said experts had decided the tape was not doctored and a police investigation was in its closing stages.
The three have claimed that the incident took place at a hotel "that offered sex services and spa facilities" in the Malaysian capital on February 21 but a subtitle in Thai gives a Bangkok address.
Anwar, who was sacked as deputy premier and jailed in 1998 on sodomy and corruption charges widely seen as politically motivated, said the tape was another "dirty and obscene" attempt to end his career.
The latest allegations emerged as Anwar undergoes a second trial for sodomy, after a 25-year-old male former aide accused the 63-year-old father-of-six of sodomising him at an upmarket Kuala Lumpur condominium in 2008.
Sources: http://www.heraldsun.com.au
