The treatment of the suspects, accused of plotting a number of terrorist strikes in Ontario that allegedly included bombings and taking senior politicians hostage, "constitutes torture," lawyer Rocco Galati said outside the court.

"That torture includes being kept in a room that's lit 24 hours a day, being woken up every half-hour, being beaten by the guards, on and on and on," said Galati, who represents Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, a 21-year-old health sciences graduate of McMaster University.

The solitary confinement cells in which the men and youths are housed at the Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton are a scant 3.4 metres by 1.8 metres, are sealed by a concrete door with only a small slit for meal delivery, and have no windows, said lawyer David Kolinsky.

Twenty-year-old terror suspect Zakaria Amara was beaten by a guard after he giggled because he felt ticklish while being searched, alleged Kolinsky, who said the guard pinned his client to the ground, drilled his knuckle into the man's cheek and said, "Is this funny?"

Many of the conditions outlined by lawyers are standard practice, said Community Safety and Correctional Services Ministry spokeswoman Julia Noonan.

"All our institutions are lit 24 hours a day," said Noonan, who added the lights are dimmed in the evenings. "For security reasons, we need to ensure that proper supervision is possible."

Twenty minutes of "fresh air and/or exercise" is also standard, and the "standard dimension" solitary cells are expressly built for "one person."

Physical abuse, however, is not tolerated by the ministry, she said.

"All ministry employees are required to adhere to those policies and they're held criminally responsible for any excess use of force."

Male family members and supporters formed a protective ring around the women as they made their way into the courthouse Monday. Among them was wheelchair-bound Karim Khadr, the teenage son of Ahmed Said Khadr, an associate of Osama bin Laden who was killed in a fire fight with Pakistani forces in 2003.

Two of the terror suspects, Mohammed Dirie and Yasim Mohamed, are already in prison on weapons charges. Fifteen others were rounded up by police June 2 in a co-ordinated sweep, followed the next day by a news conference in which authorities displayed various items that they alleged were to be used in terrorist attacks.

The display included a computer, a gun, and a bag of ammonium nitrate - a commonly available fertilizer that was used to deadly ends in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Stunning allegations contained in a Crown synopsis, and shared with the media by defence lawyer Gary Batasar outside the court last week, said that 25-year-old restaurant worker Steven Chand personally wanted to behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

While bail hearings for three of the suspects - who were youths when the crimes were allegedly committed and cannot be named - begin this Friday, any evidence presented will be banned from publication.

The ban, imposed Monday by justice of the peace Keith Currie, drew the condemnation of some defence lawyers and members of the Muslim community.

"We call it a publication scam," Ahmad Shehab, the director of the Coalition of Muslim Organizations, said outside the courthouse.

"If you accuse people you might as well show things clear, transparent, due process, crystal clear evidence so the public could see."

Galati said he wants "the public to know exactly the allegations against my client."

He went as far as to say he wanted a live media feed of his client's bail hearing - an extraordinary request given that cameras and recording devices are routinely banned from courts under normal circumstances.

The 17 suspects face a variety of charges including knowingly participating in or contributing to terrorist activity, providing or receiving training for terrorist purposes and providing or making available property for a terrorist activity.

The maximum sentence for participating in terrorism, training and making property available is 10 years in prison.

"My lights are flickering on my radio. I'm taking on water. What do you want me to do?" the man calmly asked, according to a recording of the call released Monday afternoon.

"The whole back of the boat is submerged," the man said. "We have nine people on board. Everybody's in life jackets."

The man said the passengers included four children. He said the boat was named Blue Sheep, and he identified himself and his wife as John and Carol Tobin. He added that his wife had broken her leg and was bleeding profusely.

No record of a boat named Blue Sheep was found in Florida or elsewhere, and the identifications of the couple didn't check out, the Coast Guard said.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said a couple by that name once lived near Fort Lauderdale, but have since moved to New Jersey where they were found safe on Monday and had not been on any boat in Florida.

Two pieces of a boat were found Monday, along with diapers and beer bottles, on a beach several miles from where the vessel reportedly sank. Officials weren't sure if the debris came from the vessel mentioned in the distress call.

One 10-foot section of a boat, brought to a sheriff's station at a marina, appeared to come from the edge of a white vessel with several fishing pole slots along the flat top. The man said his boat was blue and white.

"There have been no other debris sightings," O'Neil said. "There's any number of things that are going to float on the surface, coolers, seat cushions. ... I find it unusual that we haven't found any signs of wreckage."

O'Neil said it was also unusual that authorities had not received any calls from relatives of any missing boaters.

The Coast Guard and local agencies sent three helicopters, an airplane and several boats on the search along a 50-mile stretch from St. Lucie County to Boynton Beach. By Monday night, searchers had combed about 1,000-square miles at a cost of more than $100,000, O'Neil said.

Waves were 3 to 4 feet Sunday night in the area where the boat purportedly sank, about 50 miles north of Miami. Conditions were much the same Monday but were expected to deteriorate as Tropical Storm Alberto approached Florida from the west.

The officers, who were not immediately identified, had stopped on a small berm of sand to watch a swimmer whom they believed to be in distress. When they saw the swimmer was fine, they drove over the berm and apparently over the woman's head, authorities said.

A witness called the Oxnard Fire Department to report the woman was bleeding on the beach just south of the Embassy Suites Mandalay Beach Resort. The woman, Cindy Conolly, 49, of Sioux City, Iowa, was in town for her son's wedding, said Mike Feiler, senior deputy medical examiner in the Ventura County coroner's office.

An autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday. The officers have been placed on paid leave pending an investigation.

Oxnard is located about 55 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company advised users to update virus and firewall software on their computers and to block any e-mail sent from the address "av3@yahoo.com."

"We have taken steps to resolve the issue and protect our users from further attacks of this worm," Yahoo spokeswoman Kelley Podboy said in a statement.

"When we learn of e-mail abuse, such as a worm or other online threat, we take appropriate action," she said. "(A) solution has been automatically distributed to all Yahoo Mail customers, and requires no additional action on the part of the user."

Yamanner, first detected by Yahoo and major computer anti-virus software makers earlier on Monday, was ranked as having a low threat level by Trend Micro Inc. and McAfee Inc.

But Symantec considers the worm an "elevated threat," one step up from the lowest ranking in terms of relative danger.

Symantec's Security Response site suggested Yahoo Mail users might protect themselves by upgrading to the latest test version of the recently upgraded Yahoo Mail software.

"The worm cannot run on the newest version of Yahoo Mail Beta," Symantec's site said.

A Yahoo spokesman was not immediately available to comment on whether the company advised users to do this.

The worm exploits a vulnerability in Javascript technology used to make the mail program easier to use by triggering embedded HTML scripts to run in the computer user's browser.

The e-mail addresses are also sent to a remote online computer server, which may be used to run spam campaigns, experts said. The technical name of the worm goes by variants of "JS.Yamanner."