The government at the weekend opened the doors of a key prison camp for terror suspects to the media for the first time in a bid to dispel allegations that detainees were tortured like those in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

But rights activists and opposition leaders charged the government was not being genuine because most of the alleged abuses took place at secret police cells during initial investigations rather than at the Kamunting detention centre in Perak.

A total of 104 detainees, including 23 foreigners, are being held in Kamunting under the harsh Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows indefinite detention without trial.

For the first time since it was opened late 1973, the media was allowed access Saturday to follow Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar as he met detainees to verify allegations they were subjected to Iraq-style abuses.

But most of the detainees told Noh the abuses occurred in police custody during the initial 60-day interrogation before being sent to the camp.

"I was stripped naked and they kicked my chest. They grabbed my neck and slapped me repeatedly," said an alleged member of the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror group from Sabah.

"They asked me many questions that are unrelated to my arrest such as how I make love to my wife," he said, adding he was also accused of being involved in a bomb plot in Australia during the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Police tactics

Noh said he would investigate but defended the police action as "tactics" to get information and said it could not be compared to abuses meted out to Iraqi prisoners by US troops

"We will investigate but there is no evidence right now," he said.

"I want to stress that detainees at the Kamunting camp are not tortured like the prisoners in Iraq. Kamunting cannot be equated to Abu Ghraib prison."

Journalists were barred from interacting with detainees, and not allowed to bring in cameras or mobile phones during the two-hour visit to the tightly guarded prison.

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said Noh's visit was "purely a public relations exercise to pull the wool over the people's eyes" over abuses in police custody.

Hamdan Adnan, commissioner with state-backed National Human Rights Commission, told AFP police must be more transparent and allow its officials free access to the detainees to check any abuses.

A report by US-based Human Rights Watch last week documented a pattern of "serious abuses" against detainees in Malaysia.

Some prisoners were subjected to sexually humiliating interrogations, with one detainee told to masturbate in front of prison officials and another beaten in the genitals, it said.

Warning to wardens

Local rights activists have called for an independent probe into the allegations and a government guarantee that detainees would not face retribution if they testified in a public inquiry.

A memorandum from the security director dated May 25 to all prisons nationwide, stuck on a board at the administrative building in Kamunting, warned wardens against conducting humiliating checks on detainees.

During Noh's visit, most of the the detainees said they were in the dark as to why their two-year detention orders had been extended despite having fully cooperated.

"This is not rehabilitation but torture," said one detainee.

Among the ISA detainees are 75 alleged JI members, including 13 Indonesians, three Singaporeans, two Filipinos and a Malaysian woman believed to be the wife of detained top JI figure Hambali.

There are also 17 alleged members of local terror group Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) and others held for charges of counterfeiting and passport forgery.

Sri Lankan businessman BSA Tahir , who was detained Friday for his alleged links to the international nuclear black market scandal, is also being held there. - AFP