In announcing the results of a probe into the embarrassing escape, Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng said Mas Selamat Kastari, who allegedly once plotted to hijack an airplane and crash it into the city-state's international airport, had planned his Feb. 27 escape over time.Speaking in Parliament, Wong said Mas Selamat climbed out of a ventilation window of a toilet cubicle before a scheduled weekly visit with his family. The window did not have a grill on it, Wong said.
"In my view, the security weakness of this window is the single most crucial factor which enabled Mas Selamat to escape," Wong said.
Wong said there was no video recording of the escape since closed-circuit television coverage of the area was being upgraded to add motion detectors.
The escape triggered a monthlong nationwide manhunt in which police, special operations officers, elite Gurkha guards and soldiers combed the island nation's forests. Border security was tightened.
Wong said the probe found no evidence suggesting that it was an inside job, but said the guards should have kept Mas Selamat in sight by preventing him from closing the cubicle door.
"Complacency, for whatever reason ... had crept into the operating culture" at the detention center, Wong said.
Wong said the officers responsible for Mas Selamat's escape would be disciplined, penalized and replaced.
Security breaches are rare in tightly controlled Singapore, an island nation of 4.5 million people that is a 45-minute boat ride from Indonesia where Mas Selamat is alleged to have links with the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network, blamed for a series of attacks that have killed more than 250 people since 2002.
In response to lawmakers' questions, Wong said authorities believed Mas Selamat had not managed to flee the country, and that there is a risk the fugitive would launch a retaliative attack on the city-state. "We consider him to be a key trigger in the terrorist network," he said. "If he could leave Singapore and connect back with his (Jemaah Islamiyah) friends, they could well launch a revenge attack."
Mas Selamat is said to be the former commander of the local arm of the Jemaah Islamiyah.