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.
CLOSELY TRACKED: A US officer said that the warplanes were watched as they flew from Russia by way of Iran and Syria to Libya and were photographed multiple times The US Africa Command flatly rejected Russian claims that Moscow did not deploy fighter jets to Libya, saying on Friday that the 14 aircraft flown in reflect Russia’s long-term goal to establish a foothold in the region that could threaten NATO allies. US Brigadier General Gregory Hadfield, deputy director of intelligence, said that the US tracked the MiG-29s and Su-24 fighter bombers flown in by Russian military, passing through Iran and Syria before landing at Libya’s al-Jufra air base. The base is the main forward airfield for Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army, which has been waging an
‘SACRIFICED’: Hu Weifeng became the sixth doctor to die from COVID-19 at Wuhan Central Hospital, where calls to raise the alarm over the virus were suppressed The death of a Chinese doctor at Wuhan’s “whistle-blower hospital” has prompted a wave of anger at hospital authorities for not protecting front-line health workers in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak. Hu Weifeng (胡衛鋒), 42, a urologist at Wuhan Central Hospital where the whistle-blower ophthalmologist Li Wenliang (李文亮) worked, died of the virus on Tuesday after a four-month battle. Hu is the sixth doctor from his hospital killed by the virus. Another doctor who spoke out, Ai Fen (艾芬), said that authorities told hospital staff not to wear protective gear so as not to cause panic and reprimanded her for “harming
‘LEAST WE CAN DO’: The gesture was made famous by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who was protesting police brutality that targeted minorities They are images that surprised and moved Americans: police officers taking a knee alongside protesters in the most widespread civil unrest to rock the US in decades — and in doing so embracing an anti-racism gesture denounced by US President Donald Trump. As Trump pushes for a crackdown on often-violent protests over the death of George Floyd, police officers from New York to Los Angeles to Houston, Texas, are making gestures of solidarity with demonstrators incensed at the latest case of an unarmed black man dying while in police custody. “I took off the helmet and laid the batons down. Where do
Singapore’s otters, long adored by the city-state’s nature lovers, are popping up in unexpected places during the COVID-19 lockdown, but their antics have angered some and even sparked calls for a cull. With the streets empty, the creatures have been spotted hanging out by a shopping center, scampering through the lobby of a hospital and even feasting on pricey fish stolen from a pond. While many think of tiny Singapore as a densely populated concrete jungle, it is also relatively green for a busy Asian city, and has patches of rainforest, fairly clean waterways and abundant wildlife. There are estimated to be about
RSS