Federal CID chief Huzir Mohamed said the decision to call in Anwar was part of the procedure in completing its probe.

“We needed to record Anwar Ibrahim’s statement to ascertain the authenticity of the conversation between him and Zahid,” he said in a statement.

Huzir said the investigation must also include the individual who had made and shared the audio recording.

This includes the motive for disseminating the audio recording.

“(The probe) must look into whether any modifications had been made by certain quarters to spark anxiety among the public,” he said.

Huzir added that of the 18 police reports lodged calling for an investigation into the recording and to determine its authenticity, 17 were by politicians.

Earlier today, Anwar said it was unnecessary for him to be hauled up to Bukit Aman simply to give a witness’ statement over the probe into a leaked audio clip.

After spending more than an hour at the federal police headquarters, Anwar said there were more serious cases of leaked recordings that the police should be probing, particularly the ones involving Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and home minister Hamzah Zainudin.

Both Anwar and Zahid have denied they were the ones talking in the audio clip, claimed to have taken place shortly after the Umno general assembly last month which had decided there should be no political cooperation with Anwar, Bersatu and DAP in the next general election (GE15).