Detainees were forced to rub soap on their genitals and masturbate each other at the Kemayan illegal immigrants detention camp, a defence witness in the trial of Tenaganita director Irene Fernandez told the court today.

"The police forced the Burmese to come out to the field, rub soap on their private parts and ordered them to masturbate one another," Moron Mozumder said in reply to a question by defence counsel M. Puravalen.

He said he saw the incident from the first floor of the block he was detained in.

"The police beat up the detainees who refused to masturbate," Mozumder said.

The 44-year-old Bangladeshi, who was speaking through interpreter M.A.Ferdous, vomited and cried while recounting his experience during his 21-month detention in Kemayan.

Fernandez is being charged with "maliciously publishing false news" after she released a memorandum about tortures and deaths in the illegal immigrants detention camps at a press conference in August 1995.

The women rights activist and KeADILan supreme council member faces three years in prison if convicted. She is currently out on bail.

The trial, which began in June 1996, has become the longest trial in the country's legal history, running into its 227th day today.

In a drama-filled testimony, the court was abruptly adjourned twice when Mozumder rushed to the washroom to throw up while relating the conditions of the toilet facilities in the camp where he was held six years ago.

"The toilet was scattered with faeces all over, both fresh and old faeces, and the walls had fingermarks of excrements," he said.

"I had to squat with a cloth to block my nose and mouth. My bare feet were soiled with wet and dry faeces," he added, before rushing to the washroom and subsequently forcing magistrate Juliana Mohamed to adjourn the hearing.

When the court resumed later, Mozumder said that he and other inmates were forced to scoop faeces with their bare hands as part of a punishment by the police guards.

"In one occasion, we were asked by the police to clean up the faeces in the toilets with our bare hands. I had to scoop the faeces. The smell was unbearable. Some of us vomited. I washed my hands after that but the smell remained because there was no soap," he said, before rushing to the washroom to throw up again.

Earlier, he said that there were five toilets for the 365 ground-floor inmates of the building block he was detained in.

"We could only use two of the five toilets, but only one had a flush. Two other toilets had no doors and one had stagnant water in the bowl," he said.

"We could not use the toilets from 9pm to 6am. They gave us a bucket (1-foot diameter by 3-feet high) for all the 365 of us to urinate into after hours. The bucket would overflow with urine by 11pm and my body would be splashed with urine because the bucket was placed next to me," Mozumder added.

He also said that he was only allowed to take a shower four times a week.

"I was given a plastic bottle to scoop water from the tank. There were 12 to 13 of us taking shower at any one time and were only given two minutes to bathe."

"There was no towel and no soap. I wore my underwear during the shower and later switch to my pants, and used my underwear to dry my body," he added.

He also told the court that he experienced physical torture, humiliation and repeated beatings during his detention in the camp.

The courtroom became tense with emotion when Mozumder told the magistrate that his head was shaved upon admission to the camp.

Puravalen: Your head was shaved completely bald?

Mozumder: Completely bald.

Puravalen: What was your reaction?

(Mozumder broke down into tears at this point.)

Mozumder: I am a Hindu. In my religion, we shave our heads when our parents pass away. I felt I was motherless. Orphaned.

Mozumder also told the court that he witnessed several incidences of corruption among the police guards in the detention camp.

"One day, one of the inmates gave the police RM50 to buy food. The police bought food for RM30 and kept the balance of RM20. The inmate was beaten up when he asked for the balance of the money," he recounted.

He added that this practice occurred repeatedly during his detention in the camp.

Mozumber is scheduled to continue his testimony when the trial resumes tomorrow morning.