The Abolish Internal Security Act Movement (AIM) today criticised private television station TV3 for its move to screen the confessions of four Malaysian terrorism suspects and urged it to scrap the programme.

"AIM strongly urges TV3 to call off this programme in the interests of justice and civil society," said its chairperson Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh in a statement.

He said the airing must be condemned as the justice system was the appropriate avenue to pass judgement on the four men, who are currently being held in Indonesia.

"The media and governments therefore cannot subvert this due process and unilaterally assume the role of the justice system by allowing suspects to be paraded before nationwide television audiences making statements or confessions even before the suspects have been charged in a court of law," he added.

The station was scheduled to air the programme at 8.30pm tomorrow night while a clip was shown during its Buletin Utama news last night.

To substantiate his argument, the AIM chairperson cited two previous cases involving ISA detainees - Chng Suan Tze v Minister of Home Affairs and Teo Soh Lung v Ministers of Home Affairs .

He said the above cases revealed that confessions and adverse testimonies of those under detention were unsafe and unreliable.

He added that the detainees had later claimed to have been coerced into making the confessions by way of televised interviews.

Media trial

Syed Ibrahim said if the four - Mohamad Nasir Abas, Amran Mansour, Jaafar Anwarul and Shamsul Bahri Hussein - had committed any crime than they should be charged and tried in an open court, not via the media.

He added that AIM was concerned that the confessions were a "fresh attempt to strengthen the false propaganda that JI exists".

"No where to date has it been proven that JI exists. It is to be noted that the charge against (Indonesian) Abu Bakar Bashir that he is the leader JI fell before the Indonesian courts and as he is now expected to be released in April 2004," he said.

The four were arrested by Indonesian authorities after the October 2002 bombings in Bali, which left 202 dead and scores others injured.

TV3 news and current affairs director Kamarulzaman Zainal when contacted yesterday said the interviews were conducted in Indonesia earlier this month.

About 80 JI supects were being held in Malaysia under the ISA, which provided for detention without trial. JI was alleged to be linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.