SINGAPORE, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Malaysia has repatriated Singapore's most wanted fugitive, a man suspected of masterminding a plot to hijack a plane and crash it into Singapore's airport.
Singapore police took custody of Mas Selamat bin Kastari, 49, who is believed to be the head of the Singapore cell of Jemaah Islamiah. The extremist group is blamed for the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub bombings in Indonesia.
He was arrested in Java 2003 by Indonesian authorities who picked him up on immigration violation charges.
Selamat, an Indonesian-born Singaporean citizen, was handed over to Singapore in 2006 for detention in a high-security Whitley Road Detention Center. But he escaped in February 2008 by slipping through a toilet window and making his way -- possibly swimming -- across the narrow Johor Strait that separates the two countries.
Malaysian authorities arrested him in April 2009 in the southern state of Johor, directly opposite the Singapore islands.
There is no official extradition treaty between Malaysia and Singapore, so he was held by Malaysian authorities under their own internal security laws. Malaysian police released him suddenly to Singapore police at an undisclosed location.
A brief statement said the Malaysian government decided he was no longer a threat to their own internal security and decided to let him go, deporting him within 24 hours of the decision to release him.
Singapore authorities praised the Malaysian government's decision.
"This operation illustrates the long-standing close cooperation between the Malaysian and Singaporean security agencies, which has served both countries well," Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said in a brief written statement. "He is currently under investigation."
Singapore police suspect him of plotting to bomb Singapore Changi Airport in 2002 and to disrupt services by crashing a hijacked plane en route from Bangkok into it.
But Selamat has never been formally charged with terrorism-related offenses, although his arrest under Singapore's Internal Security Act allows indefinite detention without trial.
Police also suspect him of a longstanding association with terrorist groups, beginning in 1991 by joining Darul Islam, a forerunner of Jemaah Islamiah, of which he joined the Singapore cell a year later.
He first fled Singapore in 2001 during a crackdown by security authorities in which 13 suspected JI members were arrested.
JI allegedly has links with another terrorist organization, al-Qaida, and continues to be a major security concern for several south east Asian states, notably Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and parts of the southern Philippines and southern Thailand. The extremist group, designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in 2002, has had ideas to form a single Islamic state.
JI also has demonstrated a strategy of deadly attacks on locations popular with many foreign nationals, such as the 2002 bombing of Indonesia's Bali resort nightclubs that left more than 200 dead, including 88 vacationing Australians.
