When the United States adopted, in the wake of the jet plane attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on Sept 11, 2001, detentions without trial for those suspected of terrorist attacks, the then Malaysian prime minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, was ecstatic.

Now that Washington adopted it with alacrity, it proved that Malaysia had been right all along to have detentions without trial with interrogations and investigations in secret. It would put the fear of God into the terrorists, it would give the authorities the right to nip conspiracies and anti-national threats in the bud. All it ensured, in the light of the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prison scandals, is that it was a licence to make torture an important 'persuader' in the investigations.

When human beings have control of their fellow men and women without recourse to law and oversights, torture is inevitable. It does not matter which country it is, communist or non-communist, democratic or undemocratic, dictatorship or democracy, torture is routine in investigations. Torture is a dirty word, so weasel words are found to replace it. The authorities use torture in the physical sense: that the prisoners are not beaten up or otherwise physically attacked. But torture comes in many forms, sizes and shapes.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar insist there is no torture of ISA detainees. Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar says he has visited the detainees, and all they told him is that they have repented, and want nothing more than be reunited with their families. He says the recent allegation by suspected Islamic terrorists of torture is a desperate attempt to link their plight with those in Iraq and Afghanistan subject to brutal torture.