AFP - 15 minutes ago
SINGAPORE (AFP) - - Interpol issued an urgent worldwide alert on
Friday for an alleged leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant
network, two days after his escape from a detention centre in
Singapore.
Mas Selamat bin Kastari, who was accused of planning to hijack a
plane and crash it into Singapore's Changi Airport, escaped
Wednesday from the Whitley Road Detention Centre.
In a notice on its website, the global police body said it
issued the Orange Notice alert following a request by
Singapore.
Orange Notices can be issued by Interpol's general secretariat
in France for any event posing a risk to the safety and security of
citizens worldwide.
"Singapore is clearly doing all that it can on a national level
to locate this fugitive and through issuing an Orange Notice,
Interpol and all of its member countries can support these efforts
on an international scale," said Jean-Michel Louboutin, Interpol
executive director of police services.
Kastari's photograph and fingerprints will be sent to Interpol's
186 member countries, the agency said.
Analysts said they believed Kastari would try to flee to
Indonesia.
Sutarman, chief of police of Riau Islands province which shares
a sea border with Singapore, told Indonesia's state-run Antara news
agency that the city-state "sent us an urgent notice requesting
intensified patrols to prevent the terrorist from entering
Indonesia."
He said Kastari "possesses good knowledge" about entering the
country illegally.
Indonesian police chief Sutanto told reporters in Jakarta that
his force would help Singapore if Kastari makes it to
Indonesia.
"We've taken all important measures," he said, without
elaborating.
Authorities have blamed Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) for a string of
regional attacks including the 2002 bombings on the Indonesian
resort island of Bali, which killed 202 people, mostly
tourists.
Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said Friday its manhunt
continued with extensive police, armed forces and other security
resources deployed.
It said Kastari, a Singaporean who allegedly led JI in the city,
walks with a limp and was not known to be armed.
In a refocusing of the search, authorities withdrew the dozens
of soldiers, special operations police and paramilitary Nepalese
Gurkhas who had been deployed around the detention centre.
An AFP photographer later saw a group of soldiers and Gurkhas
investigating an area beneath a highway about three kilometres (two
miles) from a bridge leading to Malaysia.
Meanwhile, police arrested another man whom they said made
threats after claiming he was the fugitive.
The 58-year-old used a public phone to claim he was Kastari and
"threatened to attack multiple locations," a police statement
said.
Kastari fled Singapore in December 2001 following an Internal
Security Department operation against JI, the home affairs ministry
said.
He 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, where he was held under
the Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without
trial.
The 2001 security operation in Singapore led to 15 people being
arrested, 13 of whom were suspected JI members who allegedly
planned to attack a bus full of Americans.
Sidney Jones, who has extensively studied JI for the
International Crisis Group of analysts, said Kastari was a
hardliner but currently had little power in the group, whose
Indonesian leadership now rejects "Al-Qaeda tactics" targeting
foreigners.
