John Aglionby, Jakarta – A British academic and her American friend detained in Indonesia 12 days ago for allegedly researching the separatist conflict in Aceh province while on tourist visas have accused their police interrogators of falsifying their statements, their lawyer said yesterday.

Mr Rufriadi, from the Aceh legal aid office, said Lesley McCulloch, 40, of Dunoon, Strathclyde, and Joy Lee Sadler, 57, from Iowa, would refuse to sign anything until corrections had been made.

"It seems the officers typing the answers into the computer are twisting what Lesley and Joy Lee said," he said. "They think the police are up to something."

Ms McCulloch, who has written extensively on the 26-year conflict in Aceh and visited the region several times, and Ms Sadler are claiming they were on holiday when they were hauled off a bus on September 10 by an army patrol in south Aceh not far from a separatist stronghold.

They were then held for eight days without being charged, denied proper access to diplomats, lawyers or even a phone and sometimes kept in secret locations before being taken to the provincial capital Banda Aceh on Tuesday. The women accused the security forces of threatening to kill them, assault, sleep deprivation and refusing to file reports on the alleged abuse during that initial period.

"Their defence will be that this trip was just a holiday to visit friends and see the province's beautiful scenery," Mr Rufriadi said.

The police, who claim to have found documents related to the separatists in the women's luggage, are sceptical of this explanation of the detainees' presence in such a tense part of the province.

"From our investigations we find it hard to believe they were only there on holiday," Aceh police spokesman assistant commander Taufiq Sugiono said. "It is public knowledge that Mrs Lesley has visited the separatists' leader in Sweden and wanted to write books about Aceh so why would she suddenly come here just on holiday?" The head of the Free Aceh Movement, Hasan di Tiro, lives in exile just outside Stockholm.

Mr Rufriadi said his office is supplementing the meagre rations the police are giving the women, who are being kept in an office at the provincial police headquarters. "The police are giving them a very basic diet of rice and vegetables," he said. "So we are taking them things like fruit and coffee."

Mr Sugiono said only Ms Sadler was questioned yesterday. "Detectives have been gathering more evidence against Mrs Lesley today," he said. "She will be questioned again tomorrow." It is unclear what is going to happen to the women, who face five years' imprisonment and a 25 million rupaih if convicted of violating their visas.