MUHYIDDIN UNDER FIRE OFFERS LAME EXCUSES: AMID CALLS TO QUIT OVER USE OF SOSMA, HOME MINISTER INSISTS TAMIL TIGERS SUSPECTS NOT TORTURED – ‘I CHECKED WITH IGP & OFFICERS INVOLVED – AND THEY SAID IT IS NOT TRUE’

HOME Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has denied claims of torture and intimidation by suspects detained for alleged links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam while in police custody.

Muhyiddin said his queries to the inspector-general of police and other officers involved found that such claims were untrue.

However, he said the ministry will still investigate the matter as the allegations were serious.

“I checked with the IGP and with officers involved, they said it is not true.

“When their lawyer saw the judge in court, there were no such claims that they were beaten,” Muhyiddin told reporters in Tanjung Piai in Johor, after attending the nomination of candidates for the seat’s upcoming by-election.

The allegations of lock-up abuse and maltreatment were made yesterday by a lawyer for two of five suspects charged with supporting the now-defunct LTTE.

The statements of alleged abuse were made in-camera to Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court Judge Azura Alwi yesterday.

S. Selvam, a lawyer for one of the suspects, had applied for the court to look into the claims of torture and intimidation.

All those detained and charged for alleged links to the LTTE are being held under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) 2012.

Azura yesterday recorded statements in-camera of B. Subramaniam, 57, and scrap-metal dealer A. Kalaimughilan, 28.

Separately, Subramaniam’s son had also said police had manipulated his father into thinking that his entire family had also been detained for alleged terrorist links.

Kalaimughilan’s lawyer, M.V. Yoges, meanwhile, said the cell her client was held in was not in accordance with lock-up regulations.

Twelve men, including two DAP assemblymen, are being detained under Sosma and were charged on October 29 and 31 with multiple offences related to LTTE, which once waged a civil war to carve out a homeland for Tamils in largely Buddhist Sinhalese Sri Lanka.

The LTTE was militarily defeated in 2009 and is now considered defunct.

The charges against the 12 are under 130JB(1)(a) of the Penal Code which deals with alleged support for a terrorist group and possessing items linked to the group.

The men face a maximum of 30 years’ jail or life imprisonment if convicted.

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THE MALAYSIAN INSIGHT