Singapore, which prides itself on rigorous anti-terrorist measures, yesterday blamed a security lapse for the escape of an alleged leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant network.
Authorities mounted a massive manhunt as analysts said Mas Selamat bin Kastari, accused of planning to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport, would try to flee to Indonesia.
"This should never have happened. I'm sorry that it has," Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng (
PHOTO: EPA
Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, said Kastari had escaped once when he was in Indonesia, but his flight from the Singapore facility was unexpected.
"I think that it has surprised the Singapore authorities and everyone because Singapore's security systems are world-class," he said.
The ministry said Kastari walks with a limp and was not known to be armed.
It said he escaped on Wednesday afternoon from the Whitley Road Detention Center, which holds prisoners detained by the Internal Security Department.
Wong said Kastari had been taken from his cell to the family visit room to await his family.
"He asked to go to the toilet, where he escaped," Wong said.
The minister was responding to a member of parliament who said the escape "raised concerns about our police force vigilance and security operating procedures."
Wong said security had been tightened at all air, sea and land checkpoints and no effort would be spared to locate Kastari, who analysts say received military training in Afghanistan.
Soldiers, Special Operations police and paramilitary Nepalese Gurkhas had joined the manhunt.
Clive Williams, a professor with the Australian Defence Force Academy, predicted Kastari would try to reach Indonesia, "because if he stays in Singapore he's going to be arrested fairly quickly I would think."
Kastari, born in 1961, was arrested on the Indonesian island of Bintan near Singapore in 2003 and sentenced by a court there to 18 months in jail.
He was later released but arrested again by Indonesian authorities in January 2006 before being handed over to Singapore.
Kastari had fled Singapore in December 2001 following an Internal Security Department operation against JI, the Home Affairs ministry said previously.
"He was among those who had planned retaliation against Singapore for arresting and detaining his fellow JI members. He had planned to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport," the ministry said.
Singapore authorities arrested 15 people in December 2001 -- 13 of whom were suspected JI members -- who allegedly planned to attack a bus carrying Americans to a subway station.
Businesses, offices and schools operated normally despite the massive security presence.
Wong said security agencies had concluded there was "no imminent danger" to the public after Kastari's escape.
He said an independent investigation was being conducted into the incident.
The COVID-19 variant discovered in South Africa can “break through” Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study released on Saturday found, although its prevalence in the country is low and the research has not been peer reviewed. The study in Israel compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated people with the disease. It matched age and gender, among other characteristics. The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to make up about 1 percent of all the COVID-19
RARE ADMISSION: A top Chinese expert was the first to publicly address the efficacy of the nation’s vaccines as it aims to inoculate 40 percent of its population by June China is considering mixing different COVID-19 vaccines to improve the relatively low efficacy of its existing options, a top health expert told a conference in Chengdu on Saturday. Authorities have to “consider ways to solve the issue that efficacy rates of existing vaccines are not high,” Chinese media outlet The Paper reported, citing Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Gao Fu (高福). His comments mark the first time a top Chinese expert has publicly alluded to the relatively low efficacy of the country’s vaccines, as China forges ahead in its mass vaccination campaign and exports its jabs around the world. China
The Australian government yesterday said that it had decided against buying the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine and identified a second case of a rare blood clot likely linked to the AstraZeneca shot. The Australian government had been in talks with the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant, which had asked the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration for provisional registration. However, Australian Minister of Health Greg Hunt ruled out a J&J contract, because its vaccine was similar to the AstraZeneca product, which Australia had already contracted for 53.8 million doses. Hunt said the government was following the advice of Australia’s scientific and technical advisory
The Indonesian government has said it is satisfied with the effectiveness of the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine it has been using, after China’s top disease control official said that current vaccines offer low protection against the novel coronavirus. Siti Nadia Tarmizi, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s COVID-19 vaccine program, on Monday said the WHO had found that the Chinese vaccines had met requirements by being more than 50 percent effective. Clinical trials in Indonesia for the vaccine from Chinese drugmaker Sinovac showed that it was 65 percent effective, she said. “It means ... the ability to form antibodies in our bodies is still very