Can a competitor harm w/spammy links?

Can links from a cloaked or redirected pages hurt Google ranking

[hotftuna]

All the top sites in G for one competitive phrase show multiple back links from two sites that look like spam.

When I try to click on these back links, I am redirected to another site.

I think that the one top site that does not show these back links is trying to wipe-out all the top sites for that phrase. Several of the top sites involved took a major hit to PR last night.