Disgraced ex-Philippine president Joseph Estrada is being held in the country's heavily fortified police headquarters instead of a cell for common criminals where his life could be in danger, officials said yesterday. The 3.5 metre by 5.5 metre cell inside the sprawling Camp Crame in northern Manila is equipped with an airconditioning unit, a soft cot, a clean bathroom and a corner desk where he could sit down and write his memoirs, Interior Secretary Jose Lina said.

No television and cellular phones are allowed inside the "well ventilated" cell, guarded round the clock by police, Lina said. The new inmate's cell is on the same floor as those housing Hector Janjalani, a leader of the notorious Muslim Abu Sayyaf group, and several alleged drug dealers who are all awaiting court trials, officials said.

"Our primary consideration is the safety and security of the former president," Lina said. "We want to ensure that there will be no miscarriage of justice. If something happens to the former president, then the government will be blamed." Lina said Estrada would be allowed to entertain friends and family in daily visits, adding they would be allowed to bring in food if they wished.

"He will be comfortable, (even though) the area is very spartan," Lina said. Estrada's five co-accused, including his son Jose Ejercito, would also be jailed in separate cells inside the police compound. Camp Crame sits alongside the main Manila highway of Edsa. The camp is where political dissidents were jailed during the martial law years of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Authorities had been in a dilemma over where to detain Estrada, caught between the demands of activists and the powerful Catholic church to treat him as a common criminal and pleas from his lawyers who claimed he could be harmed in a city jail.