Sex Video: US Experts Confirmed It’s Anwar

(Malaysian Digest) – US video experts consulted by the Malaysian police have identified the man in the controversial sex video screened by Datuk T as Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, a magistrate’s court was told this morning.

Counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said that US video experts had compared images of the man in the video with a photo of Anwar and confirmed that both were identical.

“This means that A and B is the same person,” he said.

The result of the examination conducted by experts from Dartmouth College, Handover, New Hampshire was raised in the facts of the case read out today after the Datuk T trio of Datuk Shazryl Eskay Abdullah, Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Thamby Chik and Datuk Shuib Lazim pleaded guilty to their involvement in the screening of the video on March 21.

Eskay, together with former Perkasa treasurer-general Shuib, were jointly charged with possession and distribution of pornography under Section 292(a) of the Penal Code.

They had allegedly committed the offence between 10:30am and 12pm at the Carcosa Seri Negara hotel on March 21.

Rahim, however, was charged under section 109 of the Penal Code for abetting Eskay and Shuib in “openly” screening the pornographic material. All three pleaded guilty to the charges. All three were slapped with fines under section 292 of the Penal Code.

Shafee further said that according to the June 4 report by professors Hany Farid and Lorenzo Torresani from Dartmouth College there is a 99.99 percent match of the male in the video clip to a known photo of Anwar based on facial recognition analysis.

“Results of the analysis by experts from Dartmouth College, Handover, New Hampshire in the US verified the authenticity of the video, that there was no tampering or any act of super-imposing and that it originated from a DVR camcorder taken from Datuk Shazryl (Eskay),” deputy public prosecutor Kamalluddin Md Said said when reading the facts of the case this morning.

As such, he told the court that Anwar should be charged under sections 192, 193 or 199 of the Penal Code for lodging a false report, denying his identity in the video.

In the statement of facts, it was also stated that the sex tape was taken in an apartment in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur.

This was uncovered when Shuib gave his statement to the police on March 25.

“The police took a CCTV recording from the apartment and also found that Anwar was with Eskay at the lobby of the apartment on Feb 21,” said the statement of facts.

It was previously reported that Eskay had told reporters that the video was taken in a spa in Kuala Lumpur instead.

The court also heard how Eskay met Shuib and Rahim to expose the sex tape.

Eskay had met Shuib at the end of February with the recording in his thumbdrive, with a video said to be of Anwar engaging in various sex acts with a Chinese national believed to be a prodtitute.

They then decided to meet Rahim, considering that the recording was “sensitive” and had “national interest”, before all three agreed to screen the video to members of the media.

Rahim then called one Kamarulail Sulaiman to book a room at Carcosa Seri Negara, an exclusive hotel in the hilly outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, while Eskay contacted The Star‘s chief reporter Sirajinisa Habibu Mohd to round up the other reporters at the hotel for a story of “high national interest”.

“Sirajinisa then invited other reporters, who then turned out to spread the word to other reporters,” said the statement of facts.

Earlier, the trio’s counsel had listed down their clients’ credentials to prove their credibility as upstanding Malaysians.

The court also screened the 21-minute recording to ensure that the evidence had not been tampered with but magistrate Aizatul Akmal Maharani ordered the pornographic portions to be fast-forwarded.

In appealing for a lenient sentence for Rahim, Shafee pointed out that the ex Melaka chief minister was a first-time offender, that he had not caused any injury, his action was not for the purpose of obtaining profit and was in fact more for “public benefit”.

“We cannot let these men leave here thinking that justice was not served. We must show that justice has been done. Use your discretion wisely to look at their three cases here, in particularly my client, who only came in to assist in securing the room in Carcosa.

“He was driven by compassion to expose probably the biggest fraud in Malaysia,” he said.

Eskayl’s lawyer Mohd Zamani Ibrahim agreed with his colleague’s submission, saying that his client had even performed the “sumpah laknat” to prove that he was not lying.

“Until today, Anwar has not responded. What he did was for public good,” he said, adding that Eskay was also a close associate of Anwar’s since 1996.

Lawyer Suhaimi Salleh, arguing for Shuib, appealed for a light sentence for his client, saying that by pleading guilty the latter had saved time and money. He also said that Shuib is a pensioner, a senior citizen and a diabetic.