They made him choose his punishment

A GUT-WRENCHING tale of sustained prison abuse by cell mates unfolded in the High Court yesterday as a prisoner described his alleged torture in a Changi Prison cell.

TNP ILLUSTRATION: CEL GULAPA

Over eight days, the victim, M, was subjected to a horrific range of physical abuse.

The beatings left him with a fractured breastbone and chest bone, 10 fractured ribs, four fractured vertebrae and injuries to his kidney, liver and lung.

His injuries came to light only when he vomited blood some nine days after the abuse started.

He was then taken to Changi General Hospital (CGH) twice, and later spent a month in an intensive care unit. The story of the abuse emerged only when he was in the hospital.

His cell mates are now on trial and he testified in court that they made him choose from a various forms of torture, all of them horrific.

These included being assaulted and humiliated in various ways, being forced to swallow excrement and being sodomised.

He said it started one day when his cellmates told him to go to the toilet area and flush the toilet continuously.

The sound of the running water meant that M could not hear their conversation.

About 15 minutes later, Mohammed Zameen Abdul Manoff, 21, and Iryan Abdul Karim, 21, called him over.

There, on the floor in front of them were 10 folded pieces of paper. He was told to choose five.

He did. After he made his choice, he took a look at the remaining pieces of paper.

Of the 10, M remembered only nine items.

They were:

Sonic Blast Man (modelled after the arcade game, in which the player punches a mechanical pad as hard as he can, and gets a rating); Black out (where one of them would press his thumb against the victim's neck, cutting off blood supply to the head and resulting in the person blacking out); Split legs (the person sits on the floor and his legs are pulled sideways until they are stretched out straight on both sides); Wear a towel and act like a hostess; Sparring; Eat faeces; Drink urine; Perform oral sex, and Be sodomised. The details were revealed in court by M yesterday before Justice Tay Yong Kwang. His cell mates - Mohammed Zameen and Iryan - and another prison mate, Muhammad Hamdan Abdul Rahman, 20, are on trial for allegedly beating and punching M between 27 Apr and 4 May last year. All three are also accused of making him eat faeces and forcing him to perform oral sex on them. Mohammed Zameen faces a charge of sodomising M. All the alleged offences happened in their cell at the Changi Prison Complex. On 30 Jun, Iryan and Muhammad Hamdan said they wanted to plead guilty to the charges related to physically assaulting M and making him eat faeces. Mohammed Zameen said he also wanted to plead guilty to beating up M. Their hearing was scheduled for Friday, but that day, they disagreed with the statement of facts about their offences. It was then decided that all three men would go for trial. There is a court order against the publication of M's name. M told the court that the incident with the paper slips happened on 27 Apr. He could not remember which of the five he picked. But Mohammed Zameen later performed the 'black out' on him. After dinner that day, he was told to spar with the two of them, one after the other. When that was done, they went to wash up. But that was not the end. M said the duo then wanted to try the Sonic Blast Man on him. He did not know what it was at that time. So they showed him. They made him sit on the floor facing them with his back straight and his chest puffed out. Iryan then punched him on his chest and told him to rate the strength of the punch on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the strongest. Said M: 'He said I must give him points immediately, before I recovered. I was begging that I wasn't able to.' Then, it was Mohammed Zameen's turn. M said he could not remember how many times he was punched. They stopped only when he offered to perform oral sex on them. The duo then warned him not to tell anyone about what happened or their 'brothers (from the secret society) can do a lot of things' to him. 'I felt stressed, humiliated and angry,' said M. Snatch theft He told the court that he and Mohammed Zameen were accomplices in a snatch theft. In February last year, both were jailed 18 months on the same day and ended up sharing a cell. In April last year, Iryan moved into their cell and problems started a few days later. 'As we started sharing more stories, they claimed I was bragging,' said M. He had told them that he had seen a 'monster truck' at the Police Academy a few years ago. Such trucks are similar to pick-ups, but have been modified with large wheels. The duo did not believe him because they said the gate there was too small for such a truck to enter. For a few days, M insisted he was telling the truth. Then in the afternoon of 27 Apr, M was talking to Mohammed Zameen when Iryan suddenly woke up and kicked his face. 'He said I was bragging too much. I did not want any more trouble, so I said sorry,' said M. 'He said I have to be punished, so I said, 'Okay, you can kick me one more time'.' M said Iryan kicked him again, on his left ribs. Then they came up with the paper slips. Another cell mate M said that the next day, when Muhammad Hamdan moved into their cell, he was subjected to Sonic Blast Man from the three men. Mohammed Zameen also sodomised him, said M, who added that he had to perform oral sex on Iryan and Muhammad Hamdan. On the morning of 29 Apr, when prison officers did a strip search of the inmates before their yard time, the trio stood near M to make sure he would not snitch on them. M said he did not tell the officers what happened for fear of being beaten again. When he was in the prison yard, Muhammad Zameen kept an eye on him the whole time. Later that day, M said Iryan confiscated his lunch and told him to eat human faeces. When he refused, he said the three men rained more punches on him. To stop the beatings, M agreed to eat the faeces. Muhammad Hamdan then went to the toilet area and defecated on the floor near the toilet bowl. He said: 'When I chewed, I felt like vomiting. One of the three said that if I vomited, they would beat me up.' M was told to smear the faeces on his face, and he also had to drink urine. Later that day, the trio told M to act like a cheerleader while they played cards. M told the court: 'I was supposed to scream the news if they were winning and do things to make them laugh. 'But they said I was not doing the cheerleading properly, and then said I had to act out the characters when they shouted out names of movies or television programmes.' They were not satisfied with M's acting and performed the Sonic Blast Man on him. M was then told to wash the three men's plates, but received more beatings when he dropped one of the plates. After beating him, Iryan and Mohammed Zameen held and stretched out M's hands and legs while Muhammad Hamdan jumped on his chest. Iryan also beat M with a roll of tightly packed paper. That evening, the three men told M to fan them using a plastic box cover. They punched and kicked him in the ribs, chest and legs, saying he did not do it properly. Meals confiscated After 29 Apr, M said Iryan and his accomplices confiscated his meals daily, and gave him just a slice of bread or two. They also restricted the amount of water he could drink. During the next three days, M endured more Sonic Blast Man punches. On 3 May, during another beating, M said he felt his breastbone crack, and could see and feel it moving. After that, he said the three men punched his ribs and he also heard a cracking sound. M could not even sit up straight after that, but they still did the 'split legs' on him. 'My legs felt numb and I could not even stand up properly. But when I told them, they thought I was lying and made me squat and do exercises,' he said. M said that after the attack, he could not hold a conversation and felt breathless after saying a few words. On the morning of 6 May, while in the toilet area of the cell, M vomited what looked like blood. He pressed the intercom in the cell and an officer rushed him to the prison nurse, who called for a doctor. M was still afraid of his attackers and did not tell the nurse what he had gone through. Instead, he lied that he had fallen during a fight. The doctor referred him to CGH, but again, he told doctors there that he was injured while fighting. After being given medication, he was taken back to the prison medical centre to rest. A few hours later, he coughed blood and a yellow liquid. The nurse called for an ambulance and M was taken back to CGH and warded in its Surgical Intensive Care Unit for a month. At CGH, he told the whole story to two prison officers who visited him the next day. The three men did not have lawyers. During cross-examination, Iryan asked M how he was able to describe Sonic Blast Man in such detail. 'Because I took your punches for you. I became the video arcade for you,' said M. The trial continues today and is scheduled to end on 17 Jul.