The Kuala Lumpur High Court today was told that members of a Umno Youth-led mob had physically assaulted a number of people after they stormed an international conference on East Timor held at a hotel 10 years ago.

Dr Syed Husin Ali, 69, told the court how the 300-strong angry mob broke down the doors and invaded the conference hall carrying "sticks and chairs in their hands".

"One of them who had in his hand a food-container half-filled with water, (and) emptied the contents all over me. He shouted at me saying, 'Get out! Get out!'. It was mayhem," said Syed Husin, who was testifying at a RM83 million civil suit - filed by 33 prominent local human rights activists and journalists - against the government and the police for wrongful detention and negligence.

"I was personally assaulted by three persons. They used force and pulled my hands and body. They kept insisting that I should leave the hall."

Syed Husin, who is the third witness for the plaintiffs, told justice Wan Adnan Muhamad that he also saw another participant being attacked by the mob.

"I saw a woman (a conference participant) named Sheryll Stothard being physically pushed to the floor and in fact she was one of my friends that had tried to protect me," he said.

"The commotion grew. There were more shouts and abuses coming from all directions. The leader of the mob, using a (loud) hailer, told us all to leave while others joined in, saying that if we did not leave, they would physically carry us out," added Syed Husin.

He added that the 100-odd conference participants responded by sitting "quietly and passively resisted" the mob.

"They (the mob) went on for about 40 minutes. The (conference) organisers then indicated to the mob that we would disperse provided a passage is opened to allow us to leave."

Umno Youth leaders

Syed Husin, a former university professor and now deputy president of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, earlier told the court that he was invited to be a moderator on the opening day of the Second Asia Pacific Conference on East Timor (Apcet II), held to discuss human rights abuses in East Timor and its struggle for independence from Indonesia.

Shortly after the conference began on Nov 9, 1996, Syed Husin said he heard a noisy mob outside the hotel where the event was being held.

He said that soon after the crowd invaded the hotel and went up to the conference venue on the fourth floor of the hotel.

"I and the rest of the participants of the conference immediately removed the chairs and we all huddled closely on the floor. The foreign participants were placed in the middle for safety while the local participants started holding their hands together forming a circle around the foreign participants.

"At the same time, I saw a number of people locking the doors of the conference hall and stacking chairs and tables against the doors to reinforce it. There were three layers of barricade."

However, he said that after the mob had repeatedly pounded the doors for about 30 to 45 minutes, the doors eventually gave way.

"The mob consisted mostly of Malays with some Chinese and Indian (Malaysians). Some of them carried sticks and chairs in their hands while many held placards denouncing the conference," he continued.

According to him, a member of the mob was holding a loud-hailer and shouted: "We are from the Malaysian People's Action Front (Barisan Bertindak Rakyat Malaysia). We want you to disperse!".

"The mob then began to tear down all the banners put up in the hall for the conference. Some yelled out slogans and started hurling abusive statements against us. They demanded that we abandon the meeting and leave the hall."

He said he could identified several members of the mob as Umno Youth leaders, among them were Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, Ruslan Khamis and Mustapha Yaakub.

Refused to leave

Syed Husin said that as the participants were leaving the hall after negotiating a safe passage out with the mob, the police - led by Dang Wangi OCPD Zainal Abidin Ali - arrived at the scene.

"The police ordered the mob to leave. Most of them left except for 11 who remained in the hall."

He said that when the police asked the 11 to leave, they refused.

According to Syed Husin, they were again told to leave a few hours later.

"They resisted. He (ACP Zainal) finally gave the order to arrest them after having had his orders resisted more than three times. Seven out of the 11 were arrested. The other four were not taken away and still remained."

When asked by the plaintiffs' counsel, Ranjit Singh, why the four were not arrested, Syed Husin said: "I do not know for sure. However, I did recognise one of them as a Special Branch officer."

He told the court the police confined the participants in the conference hall, and he was escorted by the police when he had to go to the toilet. Lunch was later brought into the conference hall at about 2pm.

After having lunch, the conference participants decided to hold a meeting "to discuss their situation".

Syed Husin said that was when Zainal issued the order for the participants to immediately disperse.

According to him, when a conference participant Sivarasa Rasiah, asked for two minutes "to get ourselves organised so that we could remove our things", Zainal issued the order to arrest everybody.

"Suddenly three police officers came straight for me and arrested me and took me away... Some women (participants) began to sing and ACP Zainal issued an order to arrest the ladies as well."

Degrading conditions

Syed Husin recalled the "degrading" conditions in Kuala Lumpur's Dang Wangi police station, where he was held for three days.

He described the severe overcrowding in the cell where he and 10 others were held. According to him, the cell had an open latrine.

"It was too cramped with hardly any place for the 11 of us in the small area. We had to take turns to sleep due to limited space... It was embarrassing to ease myself in full view of the other cell mates. There was no water from the tap to wash ourselves," the veteran politician said.

During the hearing, plaintiffs' counsel Ranjit attempted to submit a published article, written by Syed Husin two days after he was released, to further support the witness' testimony.

However, this was immediately objected by senior federal counsel Kamaludin Mohd Said, who was representing the government and the police.

After lengthy discussion on the admissibility of the article, the judge decided to allow the two parties to submit arguments on the matter on Friday when hearing resumes.

Kamaludin was assisted by federal counsel Zanariah Mutalib and Morhajit Selamat while Ranjit appeared with M Moganambal, Abdul Rashid Ismail and Gregory Ling.

The 33 plaintiffs in the suit had named the government, then inspector-general of police Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor and two senior police officers - then Kuala Lumpur chief police officer Ismail Che Rose and then Dang Wangi OCPD Zainal - as respondents in the multi-million ringgit suit.

Day 1: Witness: Umno Youth-led mob acted like 'samsengs'

Day 2: Mob called us traitors, says witness

Day 3: Syed Husin: I was assaulted

Sparks fly at Apcet II trial