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| Southeast Asia |
| 13 S'pore terrorists to be detained till 2004 |
| 2002-05-30 |
| 13 Muslim men detained by Singapore's Internal Security Department (ISD) in January will stay under detention at least until January 2004. The Advisory Board, a review body provided for under the Internal Security Act, has concurred with the ISD's assessment that the 13 members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) pose 'an active threat' to Singapore's security. Their detention is necessary to 'neutralise the threat and to allow investigations to continue to ferret out all others in the network,' said the board. The Board reached its conclusions after four days of hearings and examining all relevant detainee statements, confessions taken before a district court judge and 56 case exhibits including video recordings and seized documents. The ISD assesses that there are about a dozen active JI members who fled the country following its arrests. They are likely to be in the region. Among them is the five-man group led by Mas Selamat Kastari, who had threatened to crash a plane into Changi Airport. 'This group is believed to be in Indonesia at the moment and assessed to be the most dangerous elements in the Singapore JI group,' said the ISD. Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines are taking the JI problem seriously. A pity Indonesia appears to be in the tank with the Bad Guys. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |