PRIME Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad today said he refused to fall into the trap of those using a sex video that implicated a member of his cabinet.

He said he was not defending Economics Affairs Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali for the sake of it but was, in fact, rejecting dirty politics and those who were trying to “use” him.

“I am not defending him. I am saying the dirty kind of politics like that will not trap me to be a part of it,” he told reporters at the sidelines of the National Strategy for Financial Literacy 2019-2023 in Kuala Lumpur today.

“Obviously, someone is trying to make use of me to achieve their purpose. This is not the usual (type of) video that you’ve seen before.

“This is purposely created to achieve certain nasty objectives to prevent somebody from making progress in politics.

“This was planned and I am not going to be an agent in making that plan a success.”

The prime minister earlier said in a blog post that if he were to remove Azmin from the cabinet, the mastermind of the video would “win”.

Azmin was implicated in the video after former Santubong PKR Youth chief Haziq Abdullah Abdul Aziz said both of them were in it.

Azmin, who is also PKR deputy president, has denied this and called it a plot to destroy his career.

Police have said the video’s authenticity is “highly probable” although the identity of the two men in it could not be determined.

Police also described the alleged mastermind of the video as a “a leader of a political party”. – July 23, 2019.