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22 November 2010
Ministerial Statement By The Minister For Home Affairs, Mr K Shanmugam, on 22 November 2010 in Parliament.
On 18 Oct 2010, DPM Wong informed this House of what Mas Selamat had said about how he got out of the Whitley Road Detention Centre (WRDC) on 27 Feb 2008. The account given by Mas Selamat was consistent with the findings of the Committee of Inquiry (COI).
CID investigations into what Mas Selamat did after he escaped from WRDC are still in progress. He has not been entirely forthcoming. He has changed his story several times. In some instances, whether his accounts are completely truthful cannot be fully verified. Today, I will update the House on the findings that the investigators have verified through independent corroboration.
Took shelter with brother’s family
Mas Selamat escaped from WRDC on 27 Feb 2008. Two days later, on 29 Feb 2008, he made his way to his brother Asmom’s home in Tampines to seek shelter and assistance from his grown-up niece, Nur Aini bte Asmom. Mas Selamat thought that Nur Aini was living alone. He believed that Asmom and his wife were living in their house in Johor while Asmom’s son (i.e. Mas Selamat’s nephew), Mahadir, was overseas. Mas Selamat believed that it would be safe for him at Asmom’s house as only Nur Aini would be there and that she would render assistance to him.
However, Asmom, his wife Aisah, their daughter Nur Aini and son Mahadir were all living in Asmom’s home. They have all independently admitted to the fact that Mas Selamat had stayed overnight in their home between 29 Feb and 1 Mar 2008. Asmom, Aisah and Nur Aini have also admitted that they had harboured Mas Selamat, providing him with shelter, food, money and clothes.
I will set out their respective roles in harbouring and aiding Mas Selamat on those two days.
Nur Aini
Nur Aini had let Mas Selamat into the flat. Her mother Aisah had reservations about allowing Mas Selamat into the flat because by that time, his escape two days earlier and fugitive status were very public. She knew that it was wrong to help him. Nur Aini, however, persuaded her mother to allow Mas Selamat to enter the flat. She gave him the use of her bedroom, provided him food and water, and also assisted him by destroying material evidence, namely the clothing he wore to the flat, which included his WRDC-issued attire.
On 1 Mar 2008, before Mas Selamat left the flat, Nur Aini applied make-up on Mas Selamat and secured a tudung over his head so that he could disguise himself as a woman to evade detection and recapture. She also gave him several items, which included a set of clothes to wear, a baseball cap, water, a snack, an illumination stick, air-tight re-sealable plastic bags to pack the items, and a backpack which he used to store all the items. At Mas Selamat’s request, she also handed to him a map of Singapore that showed part of Malaysia.
Asmom
Asmom jointly owned the flat with his wife Aisah. He found out about Mas Selamat’s presence in the flat when he returned from work in the early hours of 1 Mar 2008. He knew it was wrong to harbour Mas Selamat, was unhappy about Mas Selamat’s presence, but eventually decided to allow Mas Selamat to stay in his flat.
Before Mas Selamat left the flat on 1 Mar 2008, Asmom gave him S$100 and RM100 to facilitate his escape from Singapore to Malaysia. He also gave Mas Selamat some traditional medicine which the latter kept in his backpack.
Aisah
Aisah is joint-owner of the flat with Asmom. She was initially reluctant to allow Mas Selamat to enter the flat on 29 February. But she nevertheless subsequently went along and helped Mas Selamat. She gave him an EZ-link card and hair-net which he wore as part of his disguise, and some paracetamol.
Mahadir
Mahadir had returned home to the flat on the night of 29 February. He became aware that his family members were harbouring Mas Selamat in their flat. He did not report the matter to the authorities. However, neither did he render any specific assistance to Mas Selamat, nor was he in the flat most of the time when Mas Selamat was taking refuge in it.
The independent accounts of Mas Selamat, Asmom, Aisah, Nur Aini and Mahadir of what took place in Asmom’s flat and the assistance rendered to Mas Selamat are consistent.
Information still under investigation
As to how Mas Selamat made his way to Asmom’s flat and how he subsequently made his way toMalaysia, the account given by Mas Selamat is still subject to verification. It would therefore not be productive to set it out at this time.
Offence Committed by Asmom and family
Asmom, Aisah and Nur Aini had knowingly harboured Mas Selamat, an escaped prisoner of the State, who they knew was the subject of a massive manhunt. Even after Mas Selamat left their flat on the evening of 1 Mar 2008, they did not reveal information concerning Mas Selamat to the authorities. On the contrary, they deliberately withheld the information when they were interviewed by the authorities on 3 Mar 2008. It was only in Oct 2010, after being confronted with the facts, that Asmom, Aisah, Nur Aini and Mahadir admitted to what had happened. Asmom’s and his family’s decision to harbour Mas Selamat and provide him with material support that enabled him to escape to Malaysia was very wrong, illegal, and had grave security implications.
Mas Selamat is a hardened and dangerous terrorist, who has been involved in various plots by the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) to mount terrorist attacks in Singapore since the 1990s. He is operationally trained and has undergone training not once but twice in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. After the Singapore authorities disrupted the Singapore JI network in Dec 2001 and averted the terrorist plot to conduct simultaneous truck bomb attacks in Singapore, Mas Selamat plotted to mount retaliatory attacks against Singapore. Harbouring Mas Selamat and assisting him to escape from Singapore placed Singapore’s and Singaporeans’ security in serious jeopardy as Mas Selamat would thereby be able to resume his terrorist activities of attacking Singapore.
Criminal Offence Committed
The Government had stated in Parliament on 28 Feb 2008 that anyone who rendered assistance to Mas Selamat would be committing a “grave offence”.
Nur Aini, Asmom and Aisah were arrested and charged on 10 Nov 2010 under Section 130 of the Penal Code for their roles in knowingly harbouring Mas Selamat, a prisoner of State. The three pleaded guilty to the charges and were convicted and sentenced on 18 Nov 2010.
For their actions, Nur Aini, Asmom and Aisah have been sentenced to 18 months, 12 months and 3 months of imprisonment, respectively. Mahadir, who had a lesser role in the matter, has been served a stern warning in lieu of prosecution.
Singaporeans will be understandably disappointed that Asmom and his family had helped Mas Selamat in his escape. Their actions are however not a reflection on the wider Malay-Muslim community who had disapproved of Mas Selamat’s deeds, and participated in the manhunt for him in 2008. We should therefore not allow this episode to affect the trust and goodwill that has been built up over the years between our different communities. Instead, this episode should reinforce how important it is for every Singaporean to unite together and assist the security agencies to overcome the threat of terrorism from a small number of persons in our society.
Thank you, Sir.
What a piece of bullshit!
It is nice to know that family values in this case, trump the big blundering state.
Hey, Home Affairs Head Honcho (and predecessor): the dude escaped because you idiots were caught napping.
Of course family is going to help if they can? Don’t blame them for doing so. What did you expect? call the cops and turn him in? What kind of family would do that?
Dangerous criminals and dangerous terror suspects are locked down — shackles, GPS bracelet, 24/7 constant watch. The way the guys escaped made a mockery at your abilities, or lack thereof.
Wake the f*** up lah!
Just admit that Police screwed up, and Singaporeans will understand.
Quote-
” Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam: Let me start out by saying we are naturally disappointed that despite the intensive and massive effort made to track him down, Mas Selamat managed to slip through and to take shelter with Asmom and his family. ”
JUST SAY SURVEILLANCE WAS OR WAS NOT DONE.
SO SIMPLE ALSO DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SAY.
Quote-
” Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam: Let me start out by saying we are naturally disappointed that despite the intensive and massive effort made to track him down, Mas Selamat managed to slip through and to take shelter with Asmom and his family. ”
”….. managed to slip thru …”????
IF NO SURVEILLANCE DONE, THEN ‘SLIP THRU’ WHAT????
Quote-
” Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam: Let me start out by saying we are naturally disappointed that despite the intensive and massive effort made to track him down, Mas Selamat managed to slip through and to take shelter with Asmom and his family. ”
Just tell the truth.
Did or Did Not mount surveillance.
SO SIMPLE.
This Minister probably assumed that Singaporeans are really stupid and dense to see thru the charade and media hoopla. The real culprit who messed up big time left; this hapless, spineless one is now in an unenviable position juggling semantics and cajoling and chiding the public or certain segments of the citizens.
Oscar-performance acting and though well-scripted, sadly the stance of beyond reproach has degenerated into beyond belief.
Uniquely Singapore!
“And if surveillance was done, how was MSK not detected when he went to his brother’s home????”
He was there dressed as a woman in a tudung, and they were looking for a man. He also managed to hide his limp!
INTERESTING STORY. See #1
http://www.singsupplies.com/showthread.php?p=612005#post612005
The fact was that Mas Selamat escaped from detention on 27 Feb 2008 in Singapore and our well paid world class police force was unable to find him, and we were put to shame when he was arrested in Johor more than a year later by Malaysian police on 01 April 2009.
Local press always big mouth about how capable our police force was in comparison to our neighboring countries. I personally think that we do have some capable people in our police force but unfortunately most of them have lost touch with the ground sitting high up in the air. Or could it be due to the fact that most of our police officers on ground level were FTs (or PRs)?
I would consider typical rooted Singaporean with family in Singapore like Mas Selamat having less than 200 links and connections very common hence trying to use this number of connections as reason of failed surveillance must not be accepted. Security protocols in developed countries like Singapore are not highly guarded secrets, although they vary between them. We could logically assume that security experts will scrutinize the list of names and addresses and came out with less than a dozen targets of which a quarter or less would earmarked as most likely. The about a dozen targets selected for surveillance would typically include at least the addresses of close family members and known terrorist links. Hence we could safely assume that surveillance was set up for the address that Mas Selamat was hiding between 29 Feb 2008 and 01 Mar 2008 but failed badly.
It would be shameful to admit this fact hence the twisting, turning and evading skills were used in avoiding the question raised in Parliament. However, we must not blame him for the simple fact that he was not in charge of internal affair then and must also praise the clever strategic arrangement of moving the minister involved to other ministry to avoid such projected awkward situation, which I assumed the newly in place minister volunteered as replacement.
From the answers, there was no surveillance on Asmon since they were confident in looking somewhere else. Talk about making bad calls.
From a privacy argument, if they had no evidence that Asmon would shelter the escape artiste, then they had no right to be so intrusive and stake out at his place and trail his family.
This case was closed in such simple fashion. Taken so lightly.
@ thinknot
“He was there dressed as a woman in a tudung, and they were looking for a man. He also managed to hide his limp!”
This is great for a movie! Especially if Mas Selamat in drag outfit and that he found his new calling not as terrorist but as a-go-go dancer.
I think we should probably send our police over to JB and send the JB guys over here.
I mean, our police are world class, highly paid and therefore not corrupt and definitely not Islamic Sympathisers but could not catch the bad guy. The JB boys are supposed to be an underpaid corrupt group of Islamic sympathisers who cannot be trusted with a chop stick but somehow managed to catch the crook.
Is something not quite right here?
Pls lah, recall that when MSK escaped, the “Wanted” posters were using an old photo of him. It was about 2 weeks(?)later that an updated photo was used. Any surveillance initially done would then be based on the old photo.
Imagine the officers went to his brother’s house and a “woman” with a limp met them at the door. After questioning the “woman”, they found nothing amiss. Job done, report back to (then) WKS, sit down, look out of man with limp, ignore “woman with slight beard & limp”,….
I find it strange that this news broke only after WKS is “promoted” to another ministry. In private sector, such incompetency would result in dismissal already.
My wife and I are not from law enforcement but we watch enough TVB police serials to ask why there was no search and survellience conducted at MSk’s immediate family members’ home? TVB police serials always show the dectivetives staking out the suspects’ home, office, etc then follow them.
maybe our policemen should take a break from catching opposition members and watch some TVB serials to learn how to be real policemen.
some one should tell our law minister and home affairs that catching chee soon juan and his sister is not exactly protecting national security but catching MSK is.
Is it also security sensitive to reveal how Selamat escaped to Johore?. Was it really swimming across the Johore Straits as reported in Parliament when he first escaped OR is it through walking across the Johore causeway, now that it is revealed that he was wearing a tudung?
How come he was not ferried across the causeway by a taxi-driver relative, he has hundreds of relatives, I am sure one of them is a cab driver?, Yes!!
A reminder to those who voted blindly for the PAP. Please don’t just lick PAP’s ‘saliva’ and lap up their ‘motion’ thinking that their output can’t be tainted with ‘melamine’.
Historically, PAP is the only party that always uses the racial issue for deceptive purposes. There isn’t any real racial issue, only economic issues.
Only PAP uses such an unscrupulous
‘underworld’ tactic to deceive the public.
WKS – man without testes – a national SHAME and a bigger SHAME for his family.
Sorry, my apologies. WKS don’t even know the word SHAME in the first place and WKS is representative of PAP.
shutmudgum
a polite notice to you and your fellow ministers whoever/whatever their positions is….
……………….
there was a time when the americans intelligences informed mi7 of her majesty secret service that the argentinian arm forces was beefin up their conscripts troop headin southbound via ships………..
mi7 @ that era assumed it was just an xcersise as per normal any other countries would do which in real lives the north korean been doin very very regularly…
1 fine mornin..the argentianians landed on the falklands isle a dependent terrotory of the british government guarded by a small garrison of a small demoralised company of borin british marines..by the way..the falklands inhabitants was only around 107 more or less peasants…beneath the falklands is a mineral resources full of undrill oil & gas…
the argentinians invade and was successful resultin the britsh loss of face just liked the same mistakes when they were protectin singapore with the big guns facin SOUTH instead of north..
in order to prevent further embarrashments the british mount 1 of their most xpensives troops deployment costin the british taxpayer aroun 600millions sterling pounds and a caualties of aroun 255 on the british side with the argentinian invaders their bodies counts was last known 649
the main point i am tryin to say is simple
for an island that housed only 100 something inhabitants and needs to save face..the losses was TERRIBLE..many many british was OUTRAGED..
it was a simple mistakes that was not heeded by arrogant senoir socalled smart governors…
so please for GOD sakes…do YOUR jobs as ministers..you all bloomin ninkumput kept on makin mistakes after mistakes
and we the mere mortals peasants must pay for ALL the mistakes..
how much resource$ was spent on mas sala incident from printin posters to mobilisin the combined defences forces just to find 1 man?
hahahahaha…. and it all ended with a piece of misdirection to subtly draw attention to the sinister possibility of further involvement of the malay/muslim community. What was that all about???? Was that even necessary? Was Mas Selamat’s family’s actions a representation of the muslim/malay community? duh??
//b
daft in action