'A conspiracy in Hindraf review'

IPOH: The six-month review of the detention of the five Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) leaders on July 1 was a "camera-in-camera", with two senior federal counsel (SFC) conspiring with the investigating officer (IO), the High Court was told yesterday.

"The IO (Acting ACP Yusoff Mohd Amin) was present throughout the proceeding. Everything was held in camera. We agree that the public should be excluded, but it was a camera in camera. It was held in secret.

"Wahab (SFC Abdul Wahab Mohamed), Najib (SFC Najib Zakaria) and the IO conspired to hold it in camera. Whatever happened behind the back of the defence and counsel, we don't know," said counsel Karpal Singh when submitting on his habeas corpus application, which sought the release of the five Hindraf leaders detained under the Internal Security Act yesterday.

The five detainees are lawyers R. Kengadharan, 41, M. Manoharan, 47, V. Ganabatirau, 35, P. Uthayakumar, 47 and businessman K. Vasantha Kumar, 35.

At yesterday's proceedings, Karpal told judicial commissioner Ridwan Ibrahim that the IO was not called to give evidence or to rebut the evidence given by the five.
It was also not disputed that the IO's evidence was taken in camera and that further discussions were held in camera with Najib, in the absence of the five detained men and their counsel, he said.

"We asked for the IO to be called. If there were any points that the IO made that touched on national security, objections could be made. Court discretion should be exercised judiciously. How can they anticipate that what the IO said would touch on national security?" he asked.

The advisory board of the detention centre in Kamunting was to search for the "unvarnished truth" and see if the detention was justified, he added.

He submitted that the board was wrong in not applying the trappings of a judicial enquiry as required, when hearing the applicants' representation.

SFC Datuk Mohd Yusof Zainal Abidin said the review by the board was not a judiciary enquiry but an executive function.

"Thus, the right to cross-examine does not arise," he said, when responding to Karpal's complaint that he could not cross-examine the IO and that the IO did not cross-examine his clients' evidence during the review.

On the claim that the board did not comply with procedures, he cited a case in which the then Federal Court judge Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad said: "It is not for the courts to make laws or rules. If there is no such procedural requirement, then there cannot be non-compliance thereof".

Karpal was assisted by counsel Gobind Singh Deo, Ram Karpal, P. Ponnmogam, R.S.N. Rayer and M. Kulasegaran, while Mohd Yusof appeared for both respondents -- home minister and the commandant of the Kamunting detention centre -- with Wahab and Najib. Ridwan fixed Sept 8 for decision.