Mas Selamat repatriated

PETALING JAYA: Mas Selamat Kastari, the leader of the Singapore Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorist network, has been handed over to the republic.

The 49-year-old militant was arrested in Johor on April 1, last year and had since been detained under the Internal Security Act.

Police special task force (operation/counter terrorism) director Comm Datuk Mohamad Fuzi Harun said the Home Minister cancelled the detention order against Mas Selamat yesterday.

“The order was cancelled at 10.30am.

“He was handed over to the Immigration Department for deportation on the same day,” he said in a statement.

Mas Selamat escaped from Singapore’s Whitley Road Detention Centre on Feb 27, 2008, while under the custody of Singapore’s Internal Security Department for allegedly masterminding a plot to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport.

He swam to Johor and hid in a village in Skudai until he was arrested by the Malaysian Special Branch following close cooperation between the security agencies of both countries.

Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs, meanwhile, thanked the Government for repatriating Mas Selamat to the island republic.

It conveyed its deepest appreciation to the Malaysian Special Branch and the special task force tasked with Mas Selamat’s recapture.

“This operation illustrates the long-standing close cooperation between the Malaysian and Singaporean security agencies, which has served both countries well.

“Mas Selamat had been arrested under the republic’s Internal Security Act.

“He is currently under investigation,” the ministry said in a press release.

Authorities from both countries, however, did not reveal when and where the handing over took place.

The Singapore-born Mas Selamat had also fled the city-state in 2001 when the Singaporean authorities conducted an operation to arrest suspected local JI members.

However, he was captured by Indonesian police on Bintan Island in 2006, and later repatriated to the republic.