A Bangladeshi defence witness in the "false news" trial of Tenaganita director Irene Fernandez today told the magistrate court that he did not seek medical treatment while in detention at the Kemayan illegal immigrant camp for fear of being punished.

"Those who sought medical treatment were punished and that was why I did not try to seek medical treatment," Moron Mozumder, 44, said during cross-examination by deputy public prosecutor Ganesan Somasundram.

Mozumder had in his testimony earlier, said that he had fever for two days while in detention in one of the blocks of the camp.

Asked by Ganesan whether he heard that those who sought medical treatment were punished, Mozumder replied, "I did not hear. I saw with my own eyes."

He disagreed that there was a 24-hour medical centre in the camp and that a medical assistant visited the camp at least once at week.

Mozumder, who has been in the country to testify in the trial since January, recounted several incidents of torture and sexual abuse while in detention at the camp during his three-week testimony last month.

He alleged that he was constantly beaten, stripped naked and forced to undergo gruelling physical punishment during his 21-month detention in the camp in Pahang five years ago.

He told the court before the trial was postponed on May 19 that he witnessed 120 detainees who were forced to perform oral sex on one another as about half a dozen police personnel watched.

In another incident, he also alleged that a sick inmate died soon after he was kicked by a police guard.

The court was forced to adjourn several times during his previous testimonies when Mozumder would abruptly rush to the washroom to throw up, especially when he described the filthy toilet facilities in the camp.

In today's hearing, he told magistrate Juliana Mohamed that the toilets in the camp had a bad stench because the flush system in the toilets was blocked.

Ganesan: When you go to the toilet, do you agree that your faeces smell?

Mozumder: Yes.

Ganesan: So, if the toilet is smelly, it is because of your faeces, correct?

Mozumder: It was dirty, that was why it was smelly.

Ganesan: Do you agree that if you or other inmates don't flush the toilet, the toilet may smell, agreed?

Mozumder: We could not flush the toilet.

Ganesan: My question was, do you agree that if you or other inmates don't flush the toilet, the toilet may smell. Could you please answer yes or no.

Mozumder: We could not flush the toilet.

Meanwhile, the hearing was adjourned to tomorrow. Mozumder is the second former detainee to testify in the trial.

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, entered its 234th day today.