A Bangladeshi witness in the Irene Fernandez's "false news" trial told the court this morning that a sick inmate died soon after he was kicked by a police guard.

"The detainee had scabies and fever for 15 to 20 days, and later developed diarrhoea," said Moron Mozumder, an ex-detainee in the Kemayan immigration detention camp.

He said that one morning the police ordered him to take the inmate, who was aged between 25 to 30 years old, out of the block.

"My friend and I brought him to the gate and the police told us to let him walk but he could not. Suddenly, the police kicked him so hard that he fell onto the ground and fainted. My friend and I pulled him up and within two minutes, he died," said Mozumder in between sobs.

The 44-year old added that the police left the scene immediately after the incident and later returned with two other detainees who were related to the dead inmate.

"They took the body and put it into the guard room near the gate. It was sent back to Bangladesh 16 days later," he said, in reply to a question by defence counsel M. Puravalen.

Speaking through court interpreter M.A. Ferdous Bashar, Mozumder said that he was caned on the palm when he asked the police for medication to treat the sick inmate before his condition worsened.

"The police told me to spread out my palm. They caned my palm five times and did not give me any medicine (for the inmate). Two days later, he developed the diarrhoea," Mozumber said, bursting into tears again.

He further told the court that he also experienced other forms of torture while being detained in the camp for 21 months, between 1994 and 1996.

"One day, for no reason at all, five to six police guards came into our block and started beating all of us with a four to five-feet long bamboo stick," he said. "The attack was so sudden, I did not know what to do. All of us started running around here and there."

He added that one of the inmates fell down the staircase during the incident and they all thought he was dead.

"The police stopped beating him. He did not die," he recounted, once again .

Mozumder also told magistrate Juliana Mohamed that his whole body was infected with scabies during his detention in the camp.

"My hand, body and genitals had a foul smell. My skin was pale and there were cysts all over. When I squeezed the cysts, the pus came out. The boils on my skin also bled when I pressed them," he said before telling the magistrate that he wanted to throw up.

The hearing was later adjourned to Monday.

Earlier this morning, the court was also abruptly adjourned after Mozumder threw up when he was asked to elaborate on the oral sex act he witnessed in the camp.

Mozumder yesterday told the court that 120 Burmese inmates were forced to perform oral sex on one another.

"Police were watching how was their penis size, how they (the inmates) were performing, whether they were sucking the penis or just putting it in their mouth," he said, in reply to a question by the defence counsel.

He added that the inmates who were forced to suck the penis immediately rushed to the toilet after the act was over.

"Most of them closed their mouth with their hand and ran towards the toilet to vomit. Those who had oral sex performed on them stayed standing in the field. Their faces were pale, shamed. Most of them started crying. Some of them covered their eyes with their hand and some of them looked down to the ground," he recalled.

He testified that he could not eat his meals after witnessing the incident.

"I could only sleep after thinking about the incident a lot. If I think about it again, I feel bad," he said, adding that he has never related the tortures he witnessed in the camp to his family.

"If my wife listened to it, she will have a heart attack," he added.

Mozumder is the second former detainee to testify in the trial. He will continue his testimony when the trial resumes on Monday.

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 229th day today.

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