Anwar accuser not raped, says doctor

Kuala Lumpur: There is no evidence to back the alleged rape of a man who accused Malaysia's opposition leader of sodomy, a doctor who examined Anwar Ebrahim's accuser said yesterday.

Mohammad Osman Abdul Hamid spoke in public for the first time since internet news portals leaked a medical report in which he wrote that he discovered no signs that Anwar's 23-year-old former aide had been sodomised.

Mohammad Osman said the purported statement by him was "correct." He claimed he had gone on leave away from Malaysia because "there was a lot of pressure" on him. "Please be assured that I had merely done my job as a doctor," Mohammad Osman told a news conference.

"I am not involved in politics. I will always tell the truth." Anwar, who has pledged to seize power from Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's administration by mid-September, was charged in court last month with allegedly sodomising Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

Anwar has said Mohammad Osman's findings proved the accusation was false, though hospital authorities have claimed that the doctor was not qualified to make any conclusions on sodomy. Mohammad examined Saiful at a private hospital June 28, two days after Saiful claimed the incident occurred. Independent news websites later published his medical report, followed by what appeared to be a statement by the doctor affirming the contents of the report.

Mohammad Osman said he did not know how the medical report leaked, stressing that he respected his patients' confidentiality and had "never at any time breached my professional ethics." Mohammad Osman said in his previous statement that he advised Saiful to go to a government hospital for a second examination. It is not clear what transpired there, but Saiful went to a police station and filed a complaint against Anwar the same day.

It was the second sodomy accusation in a decade for Anwar, a former deputy prime minister who was ousted in 1998 amid charges that he sodomised his family driver and abused his power to cover up his actions.