By GOH VERN JAN 

KUALA LUMPUR - Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim vehemently denied that he was the man portrayed in the video recording screened at Sri Carcossa earlier today.

He claimed that he was attending a Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) staff meeting at his residence at the alleged date and time of the sexual act.

“Yes, I deny sternly this scurrilous attack, I categorically deny it,” he told reporters when asked directly if he was the man in the video.

Anwar also asserted that the while they looked rather similar facially, he and the man in the video were of different body types.

“The stomach of the man was much bigger than mine,” he stated while showing reporters his abdomen.


Stomach as evidence: Anwar showed reporters his stomach during the press conference

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders denied that the man in the sex video was Anwar and accused Barisan Nasional (BN) of being the culprit of the video. They declared that the ruling coalition has become frantic by shifting from major issues to personal attacks.

PKR director of communications Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad tweeted: “A little bird informed me that a doctored video of DSAI (Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim) having sex is being shown to top editors right now. # fitnah2 not effective?”

PKR’s Batu MP Tian Chua, in his tweet, described the “special viewing of a doctored video of Anwar Ibrahim” to the media as a desperate tactic by Barisan Nasional to distract the debate from policies and governance ahead of the Sarawak polls.

“(Barisan) shifted to focus on smearing and character assassination. The whole purpose of the exercise is to smear (Anwar’s name).”

“The people who presented the video viewing in Carcosa this morning won’t even reveal their identities,” he said.

On the other hand, BN leaders have insisted that the ruling coalition was not behind the sex video.

BN Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin questioned why Pakatan Rakayat (PR) had quickly denied that the man shown was Anwar, when none of their leaders had even seen the clip.

“Nik Nazmi was very quick to tweet that it was Anwar. It was him saying that it was not Anwar, we from BN never said it was Anwar. We did not mention any names but they seem very defensive about this. Maybe there is something there but I do not want to speculate,” he said.


Doubt: Khairy queried the swift denial of PR members who had not seen the video.

Nazri Abdul Aziz, the Cabinet minister responsible for parliamentary affairs, also criticized opposition leaders for blaming the government for the video.

“The opposition always says it is the work of the ruling coalition. You have problems in your party, solve it,” he was quoted as saying.