Malaysia nabs fugitive linked to 9/11 st

updated 5/8/2009
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia A militant leader suspected of a Sept. 11-style plot
to crash a hijacked plane has been arrested in Malaysia, more than a year after
his dramatic escape from a high-security jail in Singapore, officials said Friday.
Mas Selamat Kastari was arrested with the cooperation of Singaporean,
Malaysian and Indonesian intelligence agencies, Home Minister Hishamuddin
Hussein told reporters.
"Mas Selamat is under our detention and being investigated right now. He was
planning something," Hishamuddin said. He refused to give details, and also
would not say if Mas Selamat would be handed over to Singapore, where he had
been jailed.
The suspected commander of the Singapore arm of the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah
Islamiyah, Mas Selamat escaped from jail on Feb. 27, 2008, by wriggling out a
bathroom window in a surprising security breach that sparked a massive
manhunt.
The search largely focused on Singapore and neighboring Indonesia, where the
local branch of Jemaah Islamiyah was thought likely to find him shelter. The
group is accused of carrying out the 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, that left
202 people dead.
But Mas Selamat was arrested in Malaysia's southern Johor state bordering
Singapore, said Walter Chia, a spokesman for the Singapore's embassy in Kuala
Lumpur.
"The arrest was made possible with the cooperation of the two countries," Chia
told The Associated Press.
Singapore's Straits Times newspaper said on its Web site said he was captured
April 1 in a joint operation involving the security agencies of both countries,
citing unidentified regional intelligence officials.
'Security lapse'
Mas Selamat, who is known to walk with a limp, is accused of plotting to hijack a
plane and crash it into Singapore's international airport. He was being held under
the Internal Security Act, which allows indefinite detention without trial.
Security breaches are virtually unheard of in tightly policed Singapore, an island
nation of 4 million people.
The Singapore government said Mas Selamat, who is in his late 40s, escaped
from the high-security Whitley Road Detention Centre because of a "security
lapse."

He had been taken from his cell to a room where he was waiting for his family to
make a scheduled visit. He escaped after being granted permission to visit the
washroom, authorities said.
The father of four, Mas Selamat first came to prominence in December 2001
when he fled Singapore following an Internal Security Department operation
against Jemaah Islamiyah.
He was arrested by the Indonesian police on Bintan island in January 2006 and
handed over to Singapore authorities.
Sidney Jones, an expert on Southeast Asian terror groups, said while the
suspected militant worked with members of Jemaah Islamiyah network in
Indonesia, there was no evidence he was directly linked to the Bali bombings.
His arrest in Malaysia, she added, indicated the militant group's reach.
"The fact that he's been in Malaysia this whole time ... says something about the
strength of the JI network there," she said.