KUCHING — People's Justice Party (PKR) president Anwar Ibrahim told his deputy, Mohamed Azmin Ali, on Sunday (June 17) not to speculate on the purported hidden hands in the party working to take him down before any investigations on the sex videos are completed.

Mr Azmin can make that claim if he has the facts or evidence to support it, the PKR president said.

“It’s hidden, that’s why you don’t know.”

Mr Anwar nonetheless admitted “there must be some hidden hands” behind the sex videos purportedly showing Mr Azmin with the party’s Santubong youth chief, Mr Haziq Abdullah Abdul Aziz.

“Otherwise its done in the open,” he quipped when speaking in a media conference after attending the Sarawak PKR Gawai Raya open house in Kuching on Sunday evening.

Mr Anwar was implying that if the hands were not hidden, then the sex videos would have been recorded openly.

He was taking a dig at Mr Azmin, who had earlier hinted that hidden hands in the party were behind the circulation of the videos.

Mr Azmin had also said the party’s disciplinary committee should investigate how the sender of the clips had access to all the contact numbers of branch leaders and low-ranking office bearers.

Mr Anwar, however, said the party should move on and let the police carry on with its investigations.

“If you are not satisfied and (want) the party to open (its own) investigations, I don’t think we have the capacity to conduct a thorough investigation than what the police could do.

“The IGP (inspector-general of police) himself has given the assurance that it will be professionally conducted,” the PKR president said.

Mr Anwar also dismissed talk that the videos could push PKR into a crisis.

“Shouldn’t be. Our leaders are mature.

“We have been through this many times before,” he said in reference to similar videos and sodomy accusations that had previously landed him in jail.

His first sodomy case in 1998 resulted in a conviction and a nine-year prison sentence.

The sentence was overturned in 2004 but he was charged again in a separate sodomy case in 2008.

He was again convicted and sentenced to five years in prison before he was pardoned by Malaysia's king.

The PKR president was two hours late for the open house, arriving only at 7pm when he was scheduled to arrive at 5pm.

“My plane had no fuel,” Mr Anwar told members who had stayed on to welcome him.

“This is not a joke,” he said, when they burst into laughter.

He said it took an hour and a half to refuel the plane. THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT