Police have released an ex-Internal Security Act (ISA) detainee’s statement during interrogation in court today to support the interrogating officer’s case, but the document was mostly blank, drawing strong objections from the plaintiff’s counsel.

When shown to Malaysiakini after the proceedings, it was found the comb-bound document, just over a centimetre thick, had most of the pages redacted except for paragraph numbers, markings that designate the document as “secret”, and some typed pages in between.

The document was written by Asst Supt Zulkepli Hashim, who was a chief inspector in the Special Branch (SB) in 2001 and had led a seven-member team to interrogate one of the plaintiffs, Hishamuddin Rais .

pkr uuca meeting 110706 hishamuddin rais It purportedly records what Hishamuddin ( right ) said during interrogation of about 30 days at a police remand centre, and was submitted to his case file officer.

The defendant’s counsel also produced certificates from the police, spelling out the paragraphs that are declassified and could be used by the interrogating officers as evidence in court.

The plaintiff’s counsel insisted that the original document should be tendered in court in full so that its authenticity can be ascertained, whereas senior federal counsel Nor Mastura Ayob said her instructions were to mark the documents for later identification.

This was also objected by the plantiff’s counsel on grounds that the procedure is normally used for documents produced in full, pending its authenticity being confirmed by its author when he is called to the witness stand.

The court then went into recess for about 30 minutes, during which Mastura was seen speaking on a mobile phone outside the courtroom.

When the hearing resumed, she told Kuala Lumpur High Court Judge Lau Bee Lan that, “I was informed by the SB that they have the original document in their custody, and it is classified as ‘secret’.”

“If you rule that this document needs to be disclosed, only you can see it but not both parties (of the lawsuit),” she said.

“This is of no use to us. So we are back to where we are in the first place,” the plaintiff’s counsel, Razlan Hadri Zulkifli, responded.

 

There are a total of five such documents in dispute, one for each plaintiff’s interrogating officer.

Decision reserved until tomorrow

The judge had reserved decision of the matter until tomorrow to allow Mastura to obtain clearance for the document and discuss the issue with her seniors.

The trial is a civil suit between five former ISA detainees as plaintiffs, against the government, then home minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and then-inspector-general of police Norian Mai.

They seek a declaration that Sections 8 and 73 of the ISA, which allows for detention without trial, is unconstitutional, and are also suing Norian for allegedly defaming them by implying that they were terrorists.

NONE Besides Hishamuddin, the plaintiffs are Saari Sungib , Badaruddin Ismail , Badrulamin Bahrom , and Chua Tian Chang (right) , the latter also popularly known as Tian Chua .

 

They were all reformasi activists and PKR leaders detained in a swoop in April 2001 that arrested 10 people, with Hishamuddin being detained from April 10 for two years and 54 days.

Zulkepli, the sole witness testified today, denied that he uttered any threats to Hishamuddin, nor did he or his team interfere with his family’s or the Malaysian Human Rights Commission’s visits.

Under cross-examination by Razlan, he added that there are “no barriers” if Hishamuddin wanted to disclose details of his interrogation to his family members.

However, he also said that the visits are handled by police officers in charge of the lock-ups, and what they might have said are beyond his knowledge.

Zulkepli also explained that the interrogation was not meant to extract new intelligence from Hishamuddin, but merely to confirm information already available to the SB, and even described the interrogation sessions as “friendly” chats.

“So Hishamuddin is supposed to ‘melt’ and tell you everything?” asked Razlan.

“Yes.”

When Razlan asked "do you agree that illegal assemblies on their own do not necessarily cause chaos”, the former SB officer responded in the affirmative.

During re-examination by Mastura, however, he said that illegal assemblies could spin out of control, thus causing chaos.

"That won’t look good in the eyes of the world. Malaysia would be known as a chaotic country,” he said.

Religious counselling

He also told the court that he had provided Hishamuddin religious counselling in his personal capacity because he did not seem to know how to pray.

“As a Muslim, I was drawn to help,” he said, adding that Hishamuddin did not object.

In Hishamuddin’s testimony on Feb 28, he had said that he “was most of the time, belittled, threatened and mentally abused,” during his detention.

He had alleged that his interrogators shouted profanities and threats at him, accused him of eating pork, centipedes and snakes, and told him that he was a kafir because he did not pray and would burn in Hell.

“So all these are a figment of imagination of Hishamuddin Rais?”

“Yes,” Zulkepli responded to Razlan.

Zulkepli is the first of the interrogating officers to testify.

The case file officers of all the plaintiffs had already testified over the past several days since Friday evening up to yesterday.