Terror suspect escapes in Singapore
By Raymond Bonner
Published: February 27, 2008

A Singaporean man who was once one of the most hunted terror suspects in Southeast Asia escaped Wednesday afternoon from a detention center in Singapore, the Singaporean government announced.
The suspect, and now fugitive, Mas Selamat Kastari, was a senior operative with Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesia-based Islamic movement associated with Al Qaeda.
He was at a meeting in 2001 with Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, the military commander of Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia, when a decision was made to go after undefended targets, according to a report by the Jakarta office of the International Crisis Group. That meeting led to the bombings of the Bali nightclubs in October 2002, which killed 202 people.
Hambali, who was held in one of the CIA's secret sites after his capture in 2004 until he was taken to Guantánamo Bay last year, had also appointed Kastari to be the head of Jemaah Islamiyah's Singapore cell.
He fought in Afghanistan from 1993 to 1995 and was sent by Jemaah Islamiyah to return in 1998 to look at how the Taliban government was doing. He returned "deeply impressed," the Crisis Group report says.

Kastari had been exceedingly deft at eluding the authorities. The Indonesian police had interrogated him in 2002 in connection with the case of another suspected terrorist, but they had no knowledge of his own alleged involvement.
After later narrowly escaping capture several times, Kastari was caught in Indonesia in 2006, and after being held for several months he was turned over to Singapore, where he was also wanted on terrorism charges, including plans to fly an airplane into the international airport.
Singapore has one of the tightest security systems in the world, and the government gave no details on how he escaped.
"He is not known to be armed," the government said in announcing his escape.
Given Singapore's small size and efficient security services, getting out of the country would seem to be difficult for Kastari.

Source - http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/27/asia/terror.php

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