Minister's detention order on five ISA detainees was mala fide, says Karpal

PUTRAJAYA, April 2 (Bernama) -- The internal security minister's detention order on five Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees was mala fide, thereby abusing his power, lead counsel Karpal Singh told the Federal Court Wednesday.

He said the minister concerned, (Prime Minister) Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi did not avail himself to resort to Section 73 (1) of the Internal Security Act 1960.

Karpal said he (Abdullah) had thus, deprived the detainees of an opportunity to exculpate themselves so that the police could recommend to him that an order under Section 8 (1) of the ISA should not be made.

"The first respondent (Abdullah) acted in a casual and cavalier fashion, and therefore, what he did was mala fide. What the first respondent did amounts to exercise of dictatorial powers," he said in the appeal brought by the five against the High Court's refusal of their habeas corpus application.

Karpal said the investigation of the five should have been handled by the police.

He was representing lawyers M. Manoharan, P. Utthayakumar, both 46, V. Ganabatirau, R. Kenghadharan, 40 and former bank officer K. Vasantha Kumar, 34, who are seeking writs of habeas corpus to secure their release, claiming that their detention was unlawful because the grounds of detention stated in the orders were vague.

The five named the minister and the commandant of the detention centre as the first and second respondents, respectively.

The group was detained on Dec 13, last year for alleged involvement in organising an illegal gathering here on Nov 25, and for making inflammatory remarks against the government.

Currently, they are being held at the Kamunting detention centre in Taiping, Perak for two years.

On Feb 26, this year the Kuala Lumpur High Court rejected their application and ruled that the order for their detention issued by Abdullah last Dec 13 had conformed to the law.

At Wednesday's proceeding, Karpal submitted that the high court judge was wrong in not concluding the first respondent (Abdullah) could not have applied his mind adequately to the position before making the detention order.

He was submitting before the panel presided by Chief Judge of Malaya Datuk Alauddin Sheriff and Federal Court judges Datuk Arifin Zakaria and Datuk Hashim Yusoff.

Karpal said the court should allow the appeal as one of the detainees, Manoharan was a member of parliament after he won the Kota Alam Shah state seat in Selangor on a DAP ticket, defeating Ching Su Chen of the Barisan Nasional (BN) by 7,184 votes.

Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, for both respondents, will give his submission Thursday.

Karpal was assisted by sons, Ram Karpal and Gobind Singh Deo.

Bernama