51. There was a small double conical plastic stool in front of the table. It had no back or arms. I sat on it and found that it was unstable and rocked and swiveled at even the slightest move. I was unsteady on that stool and one of the two Chinese men shouted at me to sit properly. I tried to explain but before I could even do so he shouted, "Learn some manners, otherwise things are going to be difficult for you". I apologized to him and said, "Sorry, sir, the stool is unsteady."
52. There was then suddenly a barrage of questions directed at me. One interrogator would ask a question, I would be in the middle of my answer when another would cut in with a second question. I would turn to the second officer and the third would attack me with a different question. I would turn to the third and the first would yell at me demanding his answer. As I tried to recollect my thoughts between the first, second and third questions, the fourth officer would cut in with yet another question. The questions were never related, there was no link between them though they were all directed at my personal particulars, about my work, something about everything but nothing indicative of any subversive or criminal activities. This style of questioning was consistently followed throughout my interrogation there though at times some of the interrogators would leave the room leaving behind two and, at times, one interrogator. I can only guess they went to rest but they never let me rest.
53. While this was going on I heard the door behind me being violently kicked open. I turned and saw a man walk in. The four behind the table stood up. The man who walked in was carrying a thick heavy file. He walked up to me and hit the back of my head with the file and then shouted at me that they knew everything and that there was no need for me to misguide them or to hide. He said that they knew everything I did with Anwar. When I tried to protest that I did nothing except help write speeches, this officer menacingly said " I am giving you 24 hours. Within that period come up with what we want or we will be very very nasty with you." He went on to say that his superiors wanted the information from me within 24 hours, that by tomorrow they must complete the matter. He then hit the back of my head again with his file, thumped the floor with his shoes, shouted `Hidup Malaysia', turned and left. The door was heavily slammed shut behind him.
54. When this officer left the room the Indian-looking man at the table pointed at me and warned me that the officer who had just left was the top-notch officer and added `You know what he wants. He wants facts, information. We want facts." I again protested that I had done nothing irregular but they were not interested in my protestations and continued haranguing me. They alternated in questioning me about my personal particulars, about my family, my work, regularly interspersing the barrage of questions with warnings that my arrest was under the Internal Security Act because I was a threat to the national security of Malaysia, that under the Internal Security Act I would never be bailed out and that no lawyer could ever see me.
55. They would then switch to telling me that the Internal Security Act was not punitive but preventive, that they had invoked it in order to prevent perceived threats to the national security of the country, that I should not feel ashamed of my presence there before them, that they had arrested members of Parliament, Chief Ministers and other high profile figures. They described to me an attempt by a person known as Kitingan who tried to secede from Malaysia.
56. In between all the verbal abuse, threats and advise, the Malay officer tried to impress me with his knowledge of Urdu by the use of the odd word or two or by singing a snatch of some Hindi song.
57. I kept telling them, whenever they would let me, that I had made no attempt to attack Malaysia, that I had done nothing illegal or criminal and could not understand my presence before them and for their treating me in such a humiliating and degrading manner. They never answered me on that but would always turn things around and tell me that I was at a transit station and that my presence there was a favor to me and my family. One or other of the four would always warn me that if I did not co-operate I would be sent to a detention center for 2 years and that the detention would be further extended in 2 year multiples. I was repeatedly told that I would never see my family again and that I should consider this opportunity a blessing since everyone was giving me a chance.
58. I couldn't understand what they wanted and what was this chance they were giving me. I would tell them this. They would then emphasize, in turn, repeatedly, about how senior people had been arrested for their own rehabilitation. They warned me that my perception of no wrong was mine and not necessarily correct, that in someone else's or his (the officer's) mind I had done wrong. They warned me that the Internal Security Act was to retrain minds towards goodness, to offer me a chance to realize my mistakes and an opportunity to repent. They would repeatedly emphasize that I could not lie as they knew everything and that my perception of events and ideas was totally wrong. They said that they would correct me and I must accept their perceptions. They warned me that they wanted me to co-operate and that if I did so the interview would finish quickly and I would be free but that if I didn't I would go to the detention center and it would be the end of my and my family's life.
59. These warnings were repeatedly given to me every time I tired from the questions that were being continuously hurled at me. There was no let up in the interrogation or the threats or the warnings despite their being aware of my medical condition and my state of exhaustion.
60. I had had just one small meal since my arrest early on the morning of the 14 September 1998. I had had no rest or sleep and had lost all track of time. I was sick. My interrogators did not care at all about my condition. At some point of time in the night or the early hours of the morning, shortly before they returned me to the cell, they beganasking me whether I knew why I was there in their hands. I said I did not know and they would then tell me that it had to do with Anwar. When I would tell them that I was his English speech writer they would respond by saying that they knew. They would then ask me to think of my position and that I had to help them and the nation. They would tell me how.
61. I knew of nothing wrong in my status of being Anwar's speech writer and friend. They would then alternatively yell, shout or advise that my perceptions were wrong and that they would tell me how to help them and the nation.
62. They finally asked me to think of my status and that they would see me soon.
63. After hours of this rough and humiliating interrogation I was once again blindfolded and handcuffed and led back down the five flights of stairs to my cell. I was pushed in and my blindfold and handcuffs were removed.
64. I had been barely in my cell for a few minutes when the peephole opened and someone peered in and jeered at me. The person muttered abuse in Bahasa before slamming shut the peephole.
65. I did not know what time it was. I could only guess that it was well into the morning of 15 September 1998. I was exhausted. I tried to rest on the wooden platform but was unable to do so with the overhead bright light and the noise from the vent.
66. There was the loud knock on the door again and once more my number was called out and the door opened. I was already on my feet. I was asked to take my bath. Fazed out, dazed, exhausted I was led to the bathroom, my head held forcibly down. The water from the overhead pipe was cold. I had hardly started when I was told to stop and to get out. I did not even dry myself but hurriedly put on my pajama pants and the T-shirt. I forgot again to switch off the light and go yelled again because of that. I was led back to my cell, head down. My clothes were wet and uncomfortable and with the light on and the noise from the vent I could not sleep.
67. A short while later there was a knock on the door. The number calling and door opening ritual was repeated. I was asked to put my plastic bowl outside the door. I did so and a guard poured plain tea in it. A slice of white bread was placed on a grill bar in the door and I was ordered to pick it up. I carried the bowl and bread into my cell. This was my breakfast.
68. A little later my number was called out again and a man walked into my cell. He asked if I remembered him. He said he was `Mr. Nice Guy'. He said he was taking me to the Hospital.
69. My chest pains, palpitations, breathlessness and numbness in my arm had continued from the morning of 14 September right through the night's interrogation.
70. I was once again blindfolded and handcuffed and led down one or two floors. I was then put in a vehicle of some sort. I was unable to see out and both the blindfold and handcuffs were kept on throughout the entire journey. When the van stopped someone came into the back of the vehicle and removed my blindfold and handcuffs. I saw that it was the officer calling himself `Mr. Nice Guy' who had done that. He warned me that this was a special privilege being given to me and that I was to behave myself while with the doctor. He warned me that I was under their complete surveillance all the time.
71. I can only guess that the time now would have been somewhere after 8.00 a.m..
72. When I was first brought out of the van the sunlight bothered my eyes. I saw the emergency services signboard of the General Hospital, Kuala Lumpur. There were four police officers constantly circling me. I was taken to a see a lady doctor who wore a tag that, I think, read `Dr. Shymala Devi'. My number was given to the doctor. They also handed to her a file which they had with them. I was sent for an ECG and a urine test. I also had a chest x-ray done and then was brought back to the same doctor. She did a cursory physical examination and then prescribed five different medications which were handed to the police officers. I was returned to the van, placed inside it, once again blindfolded and handcuffed and taken back to my cell.
73. They left me alone for a short while after that and then brought a small packet of rice with a piece of fried fish which again had the same rancid taste and was inedible. I forced myself to eat some of it but felt sick and uncomfortable and lightheaded immediately after doing so.
74. After this `lunch' I was removed once again from my cell after being first blindfolded and handcuffed. I was taken up the 50 steps to the previous night's interrogation room. The same four officers were there. Their attitude, initially, was different. They started by talking about the hospital, how about they cared for me and how they were not taking any chances with me. One asked me to sit. The chair was unstable and I said that I would rather stand. I remained standing. After a while I was given a different chair.
75. There was at first a preliminary exchange about the medication that I had been given at the hospital that morning. After that one of the four started on the interrogation. He asked if I had thought about things and about how I could help them and the country. I responded by talking about the Journal I had started and about how that had put Malaysia on the world map. They stopped me and warned me that I was on the wrong track. They asked me to concentrate on Anwar.
76. I still could not understand what they wanted from me on Anwar and I asked them. Finally one of them asked if I had read the affidavits that had been published in the papers about Anwar. I said yes but not in any great detail. One of them said that there were sexual allegations, particularly of a homosexual nature, against Anwar in those affidavits. I told them that so far as I knew Anwar was not involved in any such sexual activities and that in all the years I had known him he had always conducted himself with integrity. I told them that it was easy to make such allegations. They said they would show me evidence. They asked me to think and concentrate on such homosexual activities. I asked if they were making allegations against me. They denied this and merely said they wanted me to think about these things. They said that their senior Officer wanted results and once they had results they would let me sleep and would not disturb me. I told them that I had never had a homosexual relationship in my entire life. They said they knew that that was my perception of things but that my perception of things was wrong, that they had to retrain my mind to see what was right and wrong, that they would show me how. Once again they went into how the Internal Security Act was there to help to rehabilitate minds and people. They said they would show me how. They said they did not want to fail with me and have me sent off to the detention center. They said that my family would be completely destroyed if that happened.
77. For the first time at this session they also introduced a threat involving the presence of US agents in Malaysia. They said that the US agents were here and were working with them and were already checking into my background with a view to canceling my pending application for US citizenship and revoking my green card.
78. For hours the interrogation veered between my rehabilitation, the retraining of my mind, the position and well-being of my family, the possibility of my being put away in a detention center, of losing everything I had, my wife, my children, my work, my freedom, of losing my pending US citizenship, of being ultimately deported from Malaysia. I was constantly reminded that I could help the nation, that Anwar was a threat, that the Senior Officers wanted results. The style was always the same with all four of them throwing questions at me and not allowing me to marshall my thoughts and answer them.
79. As the interrogation progressed one or more of the four officers would, without warning, break into loose vulgar language. One would make statements like `Anwar fucks, you fuck' and the rest would laugh. Another would then make a derogatory remark about the Punjabis being big fuckers and offer me a cigarette.
80. I always felt lightheaded after I smoked one of their cigarettes.
81. The interrogation would then switch back to my work, my vulnerability being an alien in Malaysia, my family, and then, just as suddenly switch back to vulgarity and Anwar and homosexuality. They would make lewd remarks, asking me about the size of my penis using expressions like `dick', `cock'. They would ask me for its length, its diameter, asking me whether I would like to put it in someone's `arse'. They asked how I would feel if I had someone's meat `shoved up my arse', whether I would like to put my `meat in someone's arse', that they could arrange `it' and everything else there, that when I went to the detention center I would have `it' done to me regularly.
82. This switching in the interrogation continued unabated right throughout the time I was with them. Except for the brief periods I was in the cell the interrogation never let up. Sometime in the course of the second day one new interrogator joined the team but the interrogation was usually conducted by four of them at any one time. Gradually they began to introduce Anwar's name more into the abuse and began to make him play a more active part in their lewd descriptions of homosexual and non-homosexual sex. They began to make suggestions that Anwar enjoyed homosexual sex. They asked me to think about homosexual sex, about `fucking' Anwar, about Anwar `fucking' me. They asked me to groan as if I was being `fucked' and enjoying it. In that situation, in their hands, I had little choice but to groan and moan as my captors wanted me to. I acted as they wanted me to. They were bullies and I was in their hands. They asked me if I sucked cocks and then asked me to pretend I was sucking a big lollipop. They asked me if I had seen Anwar's cock and then asked me to pretend I was sucking the cock of the `DPM', as one officer crudely put it. As I acted out the demeaning, humiliating parts they gave me, they laughed and asked if it was good.
83. By the end of the second day the long hours of interrogation, the lack of sleep, and the lack of decent food had left me completely disoriented and exhausted. My health was deteriorating and I was extremely worried about my family.
84. I was only given my medication when my captors remembered to do so.
85. I remember the second day's interrogation ending with my interrogators' warning to me to think about all they had said and that they would be seeing me again shortly. They said that I could give a great gift to the nation and that the country would be forever grateful to me. Their parting words, in unison, were `Fuck Anwar'. I was then handcuffed and blindfolded and led back to my cell.
86. I had no idea of time.
87. My cell had no pillow or anything that even remotely resembled comfort. The wooden platform that was to be my bed was half my height. If I lay down straight half my body hung over the side. The only way I could lie on the platform was in the fetal position. The light and the sound from the vent made sleep impossible.
88. The walls of the cell were thick and appeared soundproof.
89. Each time I was made to walk the corridor outside my cell the silence of the place had overwhelmed me. I heard no sounds other than an occasional cough and so sensed there were others in the cells adjoining mine.
90. Lying there curled up in that fetal position I could only replay in my mind what my captors had repeatedly drummed into me: the sex acts they asked me to act out, the vulnerable position that I was in, that my wife and children were in. I thought repeatedly about the US agents I had been told were already here working with my captors and wondered what lies were being told to them. In that silence, in that cell I was alone and very far from normalcy and truth and felt increasingly that no one could help me or my family. We had no money, no savings, nothing. I thought of being detained indefinitely, of losing my job, of my family being destitute and alone in a foreign country, of the influence of the Malaysian police on the US Government to cancel my immigration green card and my pending US citizenship application. I thought of being penniless, of being deported with no visible means of support. I thought of all this and I thought of sleep and food and the love of my family and I cried.
91. I had done nothing wrong but I was deeply frightened. I felt hopelessly outnumbered and very vulnerable.
92. I dreaded the knock on the door and the calling of number `26'. But it inevitably came with my bathtime. I was slow again and again I was scolded as if I was a child. I was bundled down the corridor, with my head held down, into the bathroom. Once again I was hurried out of the bathroom, the bath incomplete and sent back to my cell.
93. A little later I was given breakfast. It was the same weak tea in a plastic bowl and a slice of plain white bread that was placed on the grill bar for me to take as if I was a beggar.
94. Another knock, another call of number `26' and tired as I was I stood up, waiting for my captors. This time they came with the blindfolds and the handcuffs and blindfolded and handcuffed I was once again, alternately led, guided and dragged by the cuffs up the 50 steps. At the top of the 50 steps the blindfold was taken off and the guard made lewd gestures with his hands and fingers and then pushed me through the door. I was not made to turn left as previously but dragged past a maze of doors along the corridor which was dark save for a red light, as in a darkroom, in the far distance. I kept fearing the impression of a black abyss that seemed to flank the corridor on my right and feared stepping off into some sort of void. I was taken through a final door and walked into a room which was as before brightly lit.
95. There was one man seated alone at a table. I had never seen him before. He asked me to sit. I did so and he then asked me for my personal history. I was too tired to resist or to ask why they were asking for the same information repeatedly. He wrote everything down. He questioned me on everything I had done, my childhood, my studies, my work, my family, everything. It was a long exhausting session. Everything was `Why?'. Even as to the birth of my children it was `why? why were they born?', or the death of my father, `why? why did he die?' At times this officer drove me to desperation and to despair. But he never stopped hammering away at me.
96. Sometime during this interrogation the original four officers entered the room and joined this fifth officer. They then took over the interrogation while the fifth officer left the room. The four reverted to the trend of the first two days. They warned me and then threatened me and abused me in turn. They threw questions at me but did not wait for answers. Each cut into the other's line of questioning and kept interrupting my train of thought. I was warned that I had been sacked from my jobs, that the US investigators had completed their work and were about to return with their recommendation that my green card and citizenship be revoked, that I still had time to co-operate to save myself and my family, that they would tell me how I could help the nation and myself. They kept on drumming into me that my perception of things was wrong, that I had forgotten, that I had to listen to them. The abuse centered around my penis, its length and size, human genitalia, vaginal and anal sex. They never stopped talking about sex, repeatedly stating that they had to fuck Anwar. They made me simulate anal sex by lying down on the floor. They instructed me to first `fuck' someone and then be `fucked' by someone. They asked me to groan and moan while I was doing it.
97. The fifth officer came back into the room and joined the original four. He took over the questioning but this time went on a new and different line. He said that he had been to Pakistan, said that sex there was repressed and regressed. He said that homosexuality was a way of life in Pakistan and suggested that I should share my sex life details with them.
98. It became apparent that this routine and the haranguing was going to go on for ever. Truth and my denials weregetting me nowhere. I was at the point of collapse and could not go on. I knew I had to play along with them.
99. The fifth officer took out a cigarette from a pack that was in his pocket and offered it to me. I was always given a cigarette from a black pack. The officers when they smoked always seemed to take cigarettes from other packs. The cigarette tasted unusual but good. Every time I smoked one of their cigarettes I felt strangely lightheaded and `woozy'.
100. He suggested that it was natural in Pakistan. I looked at him. He stared at me and then pointed at my anus. I was dead tired. I nodded my head. He smiled and said `good'. It now became a sequence where they asked questions and I nodded in acquiescence and when they asked for details I made up whatever pleased them. Gradually they made up a story about a non-existent `Parvez' and some University liaison. They wanted me to be the active partner and insisted on that feature in the Parvez story. I denied this but they would have it no other way stating that it was the Pakistani way of life.
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