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KUALA LUMPUR: Alleged Islamic militant Mas Selamat bin Kastari lived in a secluded village in Malaysia's south before he was recaptured after more than a year on the run, a report said Monday.
Mas Selamat, who escaped from a high-security detention centre in Singapore in February last year by crawling through a toilet window, is being held under Malaysian internal security laws since his arrest last month.
The Star newspaper said he had been living quietly in a picturesque traditional stilted house, surrounded by fruit trees, in a tiny village in southern Johor state which lies next Singapore.
The village of less than 100 people is just a few kilometres (miles) from a major highway but is not marked on maps and is difficult to find with no signboards pointing the way, the daily said.
It published photographs of the interior of the house, which was simply furnished with sofas, a punching bag and a shelf of books.
"He never spoke to anyone and kept to himself. And he never prayed at the local mosque," Mohamad Saat Marjo, 56, who lived opposite the fugitive's home told the daily, saying he was still shocked by the news.
Villagers said they saw Mas Selamat arrested by about 30 armed policemen in the early morning. He was taken away with his face covered by a cloth.
Mas Selamat is said to be the head of the Singapore cell of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an underground group linked to Al-Qaeda and blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and other attacks in Southeast Asia.
Singapore officials say he was part of a plot to hijack an airliner in Bangkok and crash it into Singapore's Changi airport -- one of Asia's busiest -- in 2001 following the September 11 attacks that year in the United States.
News of his capture was confirmed by Malaysian officials last week. They said that a few days after his escape he crossed the narrow strait which separates the two countries with the help of a flotation device.
- AFP/yt
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