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SINGAPORE: Interpol has issued an international red alert for an
alleged Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant leader who escaped from a
detention center in Singapore, the global police body’s website
said Sunday.
Authorities were combing Singapore for Mas
Selamat bin Kastari, the alleged JI leader in the city-state who
escaped last Wednesday after he was allowed to use the toilet during
a visit from his relatives.
Singapore police said Sunday they believed
Kastari was still in the country four days after he fled the
detention center but gave no further details.
Interpol’s “Red Notice” alert allows a
“warrant to be circulated worldwide with the request that the
wanted person be arrested with a view to extradition,” the
organization’s website said.
Four different photos of Kastari, a Singaporean,
were posted on Interpol’s website, which said he could speak
English and Malay. The alert comes after the agency issued an
“Orange Notice” this past week, when the alarm was first raised
about his escape.
Since his flight, security forces, including
paramilitary Nepalese Gurkhas, have scoured Singapore and kept a
tight watch on its borders with Malaysia and Indonesia.
Kastari was accused of plotting to hijack a
plane in order to crash it into Singapore’s Changi Airport in 2001
but was never charged in court. He was being held under an internal
security law that allows for detention without trial.
In The Straits Times, Singapore Foreign Minister
George Yeo described Kastari’s escape as “a setback” that the
country will learn from.
“What is important is the way we respond to
mistakes and recover our position,” Yeo was quoted as saying by
the newspaper in its Sunday edition. “There will be a proper
inquiry and what can be made public, will be made public. We will
put things right.”
Meanwhile, 3.9 million mobile subscribers in the
city-state will receive a photo of Kastari via multimedia messaging
from Singapore’s three main telecommunications companies, police
said in a statement.
Singapore Telecommunications, the country’s
biggest telecom firm, will also send Kastari’s photograph and a
physical description to its Internet subscribers, police said.
Kastari was arrested on the Indonesian island of
Bintan near Singapore in 2003, reportedly for carrying false
identification, and was jailed for 18 months.
He was later released but rearrested in
Indonesia in January 2006 before being handed over to Singapore.
Singapore, a staunch US ally, has said it is a
top target for extremists and has taken elaborate security measures
to prevent an attack.
A 2001 security operation there led to 15 people
being arrested, 13 of whom were suspected JI members who allegedly
planned to attack a busload of Americans. The arrests crippled the
JI in the city-state.
-- AFP
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