Umno vice-president Hushamuddin Hussein has denied that lawyer Shafee Abdullah is using the 'Umno platform' to launch scathing attacks on jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Instead, Hishamuddin said that Shafee was merely 'defending himself' from accusations hurled against him from various quarters following the sodomy conviction against Anwar, for which Shafee acted as the lead prosecutor.

"I don't think he is using the Umno platform. He is merely defending himself," Hishamuddin, who is also defence minister, said during a press conference today after delivering a special address to Defence Ministry staff in Kuala Lumpur.

Shafee had spent the first week since the sodomy conviction issuing public statements attacking Anwar's character, including describing him as a ' closet homosexual ' during a forum organised by Umno Youth last night.

Hishamuddin ( pix ), however, refuted suggestions that Umno was behind the verbal attacks against Anwar.

"That is not true. He (Anwar) had accused Umno of a lot of things before. And many of them had been found to be untrue," Hishamuddin said.