Sipaun told The Straits Times that Mas Selamat, who is currently detained under the Internal Security Act, did not have any complaints about the detention centre in Kamunting, Perak, when he visited him on Friday.
“He said he did not get tortured or beaten in the detention centre,” he said, in a telephone interview yesterday.
“He only wanted his family to visit him, but so far, they have not visited him yet.”
Sipaun said Mas Selamat, 48, looked calm and happy. The latter believed that the Singapore authorities had confiscated his family's travel documents; hence, they could not leave Singapore, he said.
Sipaun said Mas Selamat also claimed he had been drugged while he was in detention in Singapore. He said he did not feel normal most of the time and was always dizzy.
According to Sipaun, he met Mas Selamat for half an hour as part of Suhakam's routine checks on the detention centre.
He said he had not known that the detainee he was talking to was Mas Selamat until he said he was from Singapore.
“There were only nine detainees there and we were talking to eight of them. When Mas Selamat mentioned that he was from Singapore, I realised he must be the terrorist. I never knew what he looked like,” said Sipaun.
Suhakam is a human rights commission headed by government-appointed commissioners. Sipaun was once the Sabah Public Service Commission chairman.
Suhakam carries out regular checks on detention centres and prisons throughout the country to ensure there is no violation of human rights.
But it is often criticised for lacking the power to act against local authorities when cases of human rights violations exist.
The Star newspaper, in a recent report, said Suhakam is under intense pressure to keep its A status, which lets its members participate in the United Nations Human Rights Council, instead of merely being observers.
Home Ministry secretary-general Mahmood Adam confirmed yesterday that his ministry would allow Mas Selamat's wife to visit him in Kamunting.
“We have no problem. As long as she has the proper travel documents, she can visit him anytime,” he said.
A Kamunting detention centre spokesman told The Straits Times that Mas Selamat's wife had not contacted them on whether she was planning a visit.
For its part, Suhakam did not plan to contact Mas Selamat's wife or children, said Sipaun.
“Unfortunately, our duty is only to make sure that there is no human rights violation in the detention centres and we're not planning to meet Mas Selamat's wife,” he said.
Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said the passports of Mas Selamat and his family members had been seized since 2005, for security reasons, as well as because of immigration offences they had committed while on the run from the authorities.
The request by Mas Selamat's family for travel documents to enable them to visit Mas Selamat at the Kamunting detention centre was currently being assessed, it said.
“We will have to consider, given the family's past immigration offences, Mas Selamat's terrorist activities and plots against Singapore, and the fact that Mas Selamat's wife was also a member of the JI, whether it is in our national security interests to grant the family travel documents to leave Singapore to visit him in Malaysia,” it said.
As for Mas Selamat's claims of being drugged, it noted that “all detainees are examined daily (on weekdays) by a doctor”, and “they may also ask for a doctor at any time”.
No report of any ill-treatment had been received, whether by the government, the doctors, or his family members who visited him, noted MHA.
Analysts said detainees at the Whitley Road Detention Centre would be treated better than those at normal prisons because the centre's aim is to rehabilitate detainees.
“If you treat them badly, their resentment will grow,” Dr Rohan Gunaratna, head of Singapore's International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, said.
Just last week, MHA announced the release of two JI detainees following their successful rehabilitation.
Mas Selamat escaped from the Whitley Road Detention Centre in February last year. He was captured by Malaysian authorities in Johor in April this year, following intelligence from Singapore. — The Straits Times
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