- He was summoned to the police headquarters over the allegations levelled by a former aide who accused the leader-in-waiting of trying to force him to have sex
- The PKR boss has dismissed the accusations as politically-motivated slander
Malaysian prime-minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim was on Thursday summoned to the police headquarters to provide his account of the allegations that he sexually assaulted a male former aide.
Muhammad Yusoff Rawther, 26, had accused Anwar, who was jailed twice previously on charges of sodomy, of trying to coerce him into oral and anal sex last year.
The lawmaker has dismissed the accusations as politically-motivated slander, saying that he "appreciated the actions and services of police officers who carried out their duties professionally".
Mahathir says he'll 'hand baton' to Anwar after Apec 2020
Sex between men remains illegal in the Muslim-majority country.
Anwar, who heads the People's Justice Party (PKR) " a main component of the Pakatan Harapan coalition which won the general elections and formed government for the first time last year " has been the target of accusations of homosexuality for several years now.
In 1998, while a member of the now-opposition party United Malays National Organisation (Umno), he was sacked from the role of deputy prime minister by then-premier Mahathir Mohamad, and charged with sodomy and corruption. After a trial, which saw a mattress allegedly stained with Anwar's semen brought out as DNA evidence, the leader was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison. The verdict was overturned in 2004.
In 2008, he was once again accused of sodomising a male aide and received a jail term of five years in 2015.
In both cases, the PKR leader maintained that the charges were trumped up to prevent him from gaining too much political power.
Last year, Anwar received a royal pardon from the country's king soon after the Pakatan Harapan unseated the then-incumbent Umno in the polls.
Fierce infighting in PKR threatens future of Malaysia's ruling party
Anwar is slated to take over the role of prime minister from his mentor-turned-enemy-turned-ally, Mahathir, who at 94 came out of retirement to train his guns on his former political party citing widespread corruption and mismanagement.
Mahathir said he would not hand over before a summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) countries that Malaysia is to host in November but could be ready after that.
Anwar won a parliamentary seat in a by-election last year, which paved the way for his return to active politics.
Anwar says sexual assault claim is 'politics at its worst'
During the by-election, Anwar ran against the aide who had in 2008 accused him of sodomy.
Sex scandals are relatively commonplace in Malaysia, where accusations of men having sex with men have become a silver bullet in a system that blends religious morality with modern politics.
Earlier this year, Anwar's deputy and Economic Affairs Minister Azmin Ali, who is currently engaged in a power struggle with his party leader, was the alleged subject of a viral video that showed two men having sex.
A youth member of his party later confessed on Facebook to being one of the men in the video, insisting that the other was Azmin. The minister has denied the accusation.
Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.