KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 20 — Several detainees arrested under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) over suspected links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) will be filing a habeas corpus application at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex tomorrow.

This was made known by senior DAP lawyer Ramkarpal Singh who will be filing the said application on behalf of five individuals, including two party lawmakers who were arrested, to secure their release.

The two lawmakers are Seremban Jaya assemblyman P. Gunasekaran and Melaka state exco G. Saminathan.

According to Ramkarpal, the filing of the application is fixed for noon on October 21.

A habeas corpus is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court to determine whether the detention is lawful.

On October 14, Ramkarpal said he would launch a challenge for the right to post bail on behalf of the detained individuals as it was not permitted under Sosma.

The police’s invocation of Sosma for the arrests allows them to hold the suspects for infinitely renewable blocks of 28 days without trial at a time.

Gunasekaran and Saminathan were among seven suspects arrested by the police on October 10 for suspected links to the LTTE, with the others picked up in Kedah, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Perak.

Subsequently, on October 12, five more were arrested in Melaka during a day-long operation by the police.

The LTTE was a separatist group that had been active in Sri Lanka until it was officially defeated in 2009. It has been classified as a terrorist group by 32 countries including Malaysia, which did so in 2014.