Court sets Oct 31 to hear five Sosma detainees' habeas corpus application

The Kuala Lumpur High Court today set Oct 31 to hear a habeas corpus application by five of the suspects arrested over alleged links to Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The five are being held in detention under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma).

"The hearing date is set for next Thursday," said DAP Legal Bureau chairperson Ramkarpal Singh, who represented all the five suspects.

The habeas corpus applications were on behalf of DAP’s Seremban Jaya assemblyperson P Gunasekaran and Gadek assemblyperson G Saminathan, S Arivainthan, and DAP members V Suresh Kumar and S Chandru.

The high court registrar instructed the parties to file all affidavits by Oct 30, the day before the trial commences, he told the media after the case management before the High Court registrar.

Ramkarpal said the applicants requested the High Court to set an earlier hearing date.

"In fact, we even prepared to proceed tomorrow. But unfortunately, the court is unable to accommodate and they (the respondents) have to file in the affidavits as well," he said.

Ramkarpal said he had also requested for his clients to be brought to court during the Oct 31 hearing.

He, however, said it was not compulsory for the applicants of habeas corpus to be present in court.

"This is the discretion given to the judge, the judge will consider the request. We have made the request on record.

"The registrar has not given us an answer, he will get direction from the judge," he said.

Apart from Arivainthan’s family, the family members of the other four suspects appeared in court today.

They seemed sad and several of them broke into tears when Ramkarpal briefed them on what transpired during the case management before the court registrar.

The family members, however, declined to speak with the media.

Also present in court were Jelutong MP RSN Rayer and Kota Melaka MP Khoo Poay Tiong.

Besides the five, another suspect in the case, a restaurant owner from Sungai Buloh, Selangor, had filed his own habeas corpus application last week through his lawyer at the Shah Alam High Court.

During the first series of raids on Oct 10, police arrested seven suspects with alleged links to the terrorist organisation LTTE in Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Perak, and Kedah.

These included the state assemblypersons.

The second series of raids in Selangor, Malacca and Penang saw the other five nabbed on Oct 12. - Mkini