KUALA LUMPUR, June 12 — Umno supreme council member Lokman Noor Adam today criticised leaders of his own party for allegedly defending Economic Affairs Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali over a sex scandal.

“It is painful when one, two Umno leaders aligned to (Prime Minister) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad came forward to defend Azmin after Mohd Haziq Abdul Aziz’s confession (to being involved in the video) and forbidding the dissemination of the video,” Lokman was quoted saying by online news portal Malaysiakini.

This follows acting Umno president Mohamad Hasan urging the party to steer clear of the sex video, and former Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin asking the public to do the same.

Lokman pointed out that this would cause the documents accompanying the sex video — alleging a fund transfer from UEM Group to accounts allegedly held by Azmin — to be overlooked.

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Yesterday, Lokman urged police to investigate the veracity of the sex videos and also lodged a MACC report over the alleged fund transfer.

UEM had earlier today denied the fund transfer allegations, saying that it does not own an account with Maybank’s Kuala Lumpur branch, nor an account with the number specified in the purported document.

Previously Umno Youth chief Datuk Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki urged the public not to share the sex video, saying the act is akin to defamation which is a grave sin in Islam.

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He added that the penalty in the afterlife would be heavier if the video clip was made intentionally to defame the purported minister.

A series of short videos lasting roughly 1.34-minutes have been making the rounds on social media. The clips show two men, one who resembles a minister in the current administration, in acts of intimacy with one another.

Earlier this morning, a man who called himself Haziq Abdul Aziz appeared in another 30-second video confessing to be one of the two people in the sex clip.

The confessor shares the same name and resembles the senior private secretary to a deputy minister in the current Pakatan Harapan administration.

Minister Datuk Seri Azmin Ali has categorically denied he was purportedly the man in a gay sex video widely shared across social media networks this week, claiming it was a “vicious libel” against him.

The economics affairs minister said he has also told his lawyers to take appropriate legal action against those who made the allegations and other perpetrators, and he will use all legal means available to expose the culprits behind the alleged plot.