KUALA LUMPUR, June 13 — Dragged into a sex scandal, Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali today said he was acquainted with his accuser Haziq Aziz but only in passing as a fellow member of the same political party.
Azmin, who is PKR deputy president, had been claimed by the man to be his partner after a series of sex videos went viral online.
“I know from afar, because he is a party member,” he told reporters at a PKNS Raya gathering.
He said the man joined PKR when the party was in the Opposition and then “hopped” to the ruling side until it lost power, but changed his mind and switched back when Pakatan Harapan won the general election last year.
“After we won, he hopped back to the Keadilan party. This is the character of an individual who is used in this defamation,” Azmin said.
He declined to comment when asked if he had any suspicions as to the identities of those behind the sex videos, saying he did not want to make any accusation without proof.
Azmin is currently in the spotlight after explicit videos showing a purported lookalike having sex with another man went viral.
Earlier today, his political secretary Muhammad Hilman Idham admitted to meeting the real Muhammad Haziq Abdullah Abdul Aziz, who had publicly confessed to being the person in several sex videos implicating Azmin.
Hilman, who is also Gombak Setia state assemblyman, said the meeting took place at the Zest Restaurant in Marriot Putrajaya here and that he had included the details of what had transpired in his police report filed earlier this morning.
The man claiming to be Mohd Haziq, who caused a political storm, resurfaced on Facebook today, alleging four past sexual encounters with Azmin and claiming that the former Selangor mentri besar had video-recorded them all.
In the Facebook post, he also accused the minister of now trying to silence him after the videos were leaked online.
He lamented the lack of support after purportedly trying to come clean on their alleged affair, which he said he would now have to bear alone while his partner would get off scot-free after receiving backing from even the prime minister.
Yesterday, Azmin rejected the videos as fake and described them as an attempt to end his political career.
In response, further videos were released to the media and Pakatan Harapan (PH) leaders yesterday evening in a WhatsApp group named “Azmin Ali Part 2/4”, suggesting that two more releases were imminent.
