The mystery over how an accused terrorist with a limp escaped from a tightly secured detention center in Singapore will be revealed tomorrow, seven weeks after Mas Selamat sparked the biggest manhunt in the country’s history.
Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng (黃根成) is scheduled to deliver a statement in parliament disclosing the findings of an inquiry committee amid public criticism and ridicule on the Internet about how the suspected leader of the city-state’s wing of the Jemaah Islamiah militant group managed to get away.
The committee, chaired by former High Court judge Goh Joon Seng, was formed last month to investigate.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) is also scheduled to make a statement on “government responsibility” at the parliamentary session.
Mas Selamat, accused of plotting to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport, was sent to Singapore in 2006 following his arrest by Indonesian police.
The 47-year-old Mas Selamat was held in the Whitley Road Detention Center under the Internal Security Act that permits indefinite incarceration without trial.
It has so far been made public that he was being led to a room for a visit with family when he asked to go to the bathroom and apparently left through a window.
Questions filed by lawmakers were published yesterday in the Straits Times. Chiam See Tong (詹時中), one of only two opposition members in parliament, has asked how a top terrorist leader whom Singapore and Indonesia had taken great pains to apprehend could escape.
Teo Ho Pin (張和賓) and Low Thia Khiang (劉程強) sought an update on the ongoing search. Teo, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Home Affairs and Law, has asked if more can be done to get the community to be more vigilant and alert.
“I hope we find out what the weaknesses are but, more importantly, what further action is being taken to strengthen our security system, and what are we going to do now that Mas Selamat is still at large,” Teo said.
Among other questions are the estimated cost of the search and whether Singapore’s reputation abroad has been affected by the escape.
Singapore sought the help of Interpol, and there were subsequent reports that Mas Selamat was sighted in Indonesia.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS