Although granted a rare legal access, lawyers visiting nine of the 13 students detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for alleged terror links today failed to obtain 'sufficient' information from their clients due to the presence of a police officer.

"They would often pause and look at the officer before answering our questions. They are not free to provide information to us," lawyer Abdul Rashid Ismail complained after meeting the students at the Bukit Aman police headquarters this morning.

According to him, the plainclothes officers sat in the same room within sight and hearing distance during separate meetings with the nine.

He said a request from the legal team for a four-eye meeting with the students was rejected by the officer-in-charge.

The lawyer said the 'interference' of the police has violated the rights of the detainees for legal consultation as provided under Article 5 (3) of the Federal Constitution.

"As the environment was not confidential, we failed to get full instruction from our clients and the information we obtained was insufficient (to prepare for their court's battle)," he added.

Asked on the students' state-of-mind, Abdul Rashid replied "you can draw a conclusion from their hesitance when answering questions".

Intimidating students

Asked whether the legal team will submit a fresh application to meet with the students, he said the team will act in accordance with the instructions from the students' parents.

The legal team started meeting the nine students at 8.50 am and the session ended at about 1pm. Each of the nine was given 20 minutes to communicate with one lawyer.

Their meeting with the nine students was to prepare for their habeas corpus

applications which were simultaneously heard at the Kuala Lumpur High Court today. The hearing was adjourned to tomorrow.

Today's meeting is an unprecedented concession of legal access in the initial 60-day detention period for ISA detainee. Usually an ISA detainee will only be given a chance to meet with their lawyer during the subsequent two-year detention.

Apart from Abdul Rashid, lawyers M Moganambal, Henry Leong, Fashilah Ahmad were also in the legal team. Human rights body Suaram coordinators Yap Swee Seng and Badarudin Ismail were also present when the legal team met the press this afternoon.

Yap said Suaram will lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) as the police 'interference' today has violated basic human rights.

He added that Suaram has written a letter to the Inspector General of Police Mohamad Bakri Omar on behalf of the parents to request for a meeting with the latter on Monday.

'False confession

'

Meanwhile, according to sources close to the family members, all the students are believed to be detained in solitary confinement at the Jalan Semarak and Kampung Batu Muda police remand centres.

Family members of 11 students were given the opportunity for a visit at Bukit Aman recently. But they also claimed that the meetings with their loved ones were also 'interfered' by the presence of police officers.

A source said that conversations between family members and the students were noted down.

According to the source, several parents felt that their sons could have been forced to make false confession whereby they had to admit their mistakes and ask for forgiveness.

Some of the students were also believed to have been put under tremendous pressure as they were in a state of shock when their parents visited them.