Sacked deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim's former speech writer Dr Munawar A Anees said he would file legal action if the " Siapa Anwar ?" (Who's Anwar?) video tape maligned his reputation.

In an email to malaysiakini , which was received this morning, he said any reference in the tape to "the circumstances surrounding my capture and subsequent atrocities committed by police with the intent of smearing my name and that of my friend Anwar Ibrahim stands in dire contravention of the relevant criminal and civil laws of Malaysia". [#1](See email)[/#]

Copies of the video tape highlighting Anwar's alleged homosexual activities have been found in various part of the Klang Valley, and in Kelantan and Kedah since Wednesday.

The documentary-style tape, produced and distributed nonymously, does not show any sexual activity, but contain visuals of doors to hotel rooms where the illicit sexual activities allegedly took place, purported recorded telephone conversations of Anwar asking Meor Abdul Razak, a fashion designer, for sexual favours, and Anwar's adopted brother Sukma Dermawan's confession of his sexual involvement with Anwar.

The tape also included footage of a hotel guest book and claimed that Munawar helped book the room in which the alleged "rendevous" between Anwar and Moer took place.

In his email, Munawar also stressed that the document he filed in court relating to his abduction and detention, was a statutory declaration, not an affidavit as reported by Malaysiakini .

"Notwithstanding any legal or semantic differences between an affidavit and a statutory declaration, I am at a loss to observe that my statutory declaration is made less potent just by treating it like an ordinary document," he said.

Munawar was arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA) on Sept 14 last year. He said it took him six weeks to dictate his 55-page statutory declaration to lawyers Manjeet Singh Dhillon and Balwant Singh Siddhu, which was filed on Nov 7, 1998. (See full statutory declaration at www.dranees.org)

He added that he was the first ISA detainee to provide a detailed statement that incriminated those who detained and tortured him.

"As far as I can tell, of the thousands of ISA detainees in Malaysia, I am the first one to come up with a detailed statement that duly incriminated those who abducted me from my home, kept me in detention, violated all my rights, tortured me, threatened me, brainwashed me and extracted a totally false 'confession' from me," wrote Munawar.

Munawar was sentenced to six months imprisonment after he confessed for alowing Anwar to sodomise him. He left Malaysia after serving four months of his sentence and is now residing in Washington. He has lodged an appeal against his conviction, arguing that the confession was made under duress.