A Bangladeshi defence witness in the "false news" trial of Irene Fernandez told the court this morning that the camp commandant ordered the beating of four inmates for suspicion of trying to escape from an illegal immigrants detention camp.

Zakir Hossain, 37, a former detainee at the Semenyih camp near Kajang, said the commandant ordered all the detainees to come out to watch the punishment, which was meted out in an open ground outside his living quarters.

"The commandant said that all the four inmates tried to escape and 'if you try to do so, you will be punished too'," he said.

Zakir said that a group of police guards then began beating the inmates, which lasted for about one hour.

"The policemen kicked, punched and beat them with plastic hose," he said when questioned by defence counsel M. Puravalen

Puravalen: How many police persons were involved?

Zakir: There were seven to eight policemen and three to four of them were in plain-clothes.

Puravalen: These four inmates, were their hands and legs tied?

Zakir: Their hands were tied.

Puravalen: What about their legs?

Zakir: Their legs were not tied up.

Puravalen: Were all of them wearing clothes?

Zakir: They were all wearing short pants.

Puravalen: How were they beaten?

Zakir: Some policemen kicked them, some punched them and some used stick to hit them.

Puravalen: Punch, kick and hit by stick. Besides the stick, was there any other instrument used?

Zakir: Plastic hose was used.

Puravalen: Is it one plastic hose or a few?

Zakir: Three.

Earlier, Zakir told magistrate Juliana Mohamad that the four detainees were rounded up by the police after an Indian inmate was beaten black and blue.

Yesterday, Zakir told the court he saw a detainee from India beaten for an hour by three police guards using a thick plastic hose and a stick.

He said that the police told him that the beating was a punishment related to an attempt by a few detainees to escape from the camp.

"One policeman came to know from a detainee that a few people were trying to escape," he said.

Zakir said that in addition to a plastic hose and stick, the guards also kicked and punched the inmate.

Asked by Puravalen what was the victim's reaction, Zakir said that the inmate was in deep pain and crying out for "his mother and father".

"He grabbed the policemen's legs and begged for forgiveness," he added.

Zakir said that the police later tied his hands behind his back and continued beating and kicking the Indian detainee.

"His hands, legs and other parts of his body were swollen," he said.

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.

A date for the continuation of the trial will be fixed on Monday.

The trial, which began in June, 1996, is the longest ongoing trial in the country's legal history. It entered its 243nd day today.