FREETOWN, April 30, 2008 (AFP) - Sierra Leone human rights lawyers on Wednesday asked to take up the cases of 174 suspects detained for years without trial at a maximum security jail in Freetown.

A rights NGO, Lawcla, 'is acting as solicitor for 174 detainees, as some of them has spent more time waiting for their trial than they would have spent if convicted,' said its director Melron Nicol-Wilson in a letter.

'The suspects have all gone through preliminary investigations by various magistrate courts and were committed for trial in the High Court, some as far back as 13 December, 2002,' said the letter sent to Attorney General and Justice Minister Serry Kamal on Wednesday.

It said the suspects 'were incarcerated at the prison awaiting the drafting of their indictments and trial by the High Court.'

They were held under the regime of the former government which was toppled in elections held last year.

'The presumption of innocence have been blatantly violated by over-incarceration,' Nicol-Wilson said.

'It is a serious violation of the right to liberty to keep a man in prison for six years before he is tried for an offence.'

Lawcla (Lawyers Centre for Legal Assistance) provides free legal assistance to the poor in Sierra Leone, and is supported by international organisations.

'We are delighted that Lawcla has taken up the case,' a relative of one of the affected men told AFP.

'My uncle has been in detention for the past five years charged with wounding and has not been brought to court since the matter was transferred to the High Court.'

International human rights organisations have documented that prisons in Sierra Leone are seriously overcrowded and that many inmates are held without trial.