Extremist suspect arrested
Extremist suspect arrested
MALAYSIA: Police have arrested a suspected member of a regional terrorist network and seized bomb-making chemicals hidden on a plantation in northern Malaysia, a government official said on Thursday.
The suspect, Alias Osman, 36, a Malaysian, was arrested early this month and is accused of being a member of Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), an al-Qaeda-linked extremist group in Southeast Asia accused in last year's Bali bombings and of plotting to blow up U.S. and other embassies in Singapore, the official said.
Alias was arrested under the Internal Security Act, a law allowing detention without trial, which is being used to detain more than 70 other suspected extremists arrested in Malaysia during the past two years.
The official said Alias led security officers to a cache of chemicals and detonators buried on a plantation at Teluk Intan Perak, about 200 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur. --AP
;AP;KOD; ANPAu..r.. Aglance-Myanmar-refugees Muslim refugees repatriated JP/11/ASEAN
Muslim refugees repatriated
MYANMAR: A little-noticed, decade-old refugee crisis involving Myanmar and Bangladesh is close to being resolved, a UN official said on Thursday.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that 234,190 people, or 94 percent of those who fled Myanmar's northwestern Rakhine State to Bangladesh, had now returned home.
More than 250,000 Muslims fled to Bangladesh in 1992 to escape alleged religious persecution by Myanmar's ruling junta.
Almost 90 percent of Myanmar's 42 million people, including the dominant Burman ethnic group, are Buddhists. About 4 percent are Muslims. The largest concentration of Muslims is in Rakhine State. --AP
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Police chief files defamation case
THAILAND: Police on Thursday were preparing summonses for three Thai newspaper editors in a defamation case filed by the national police chief over reports that suggested he sexually harassed a woman reporter.
The editors of Banmuang, Manager and Phoo Chad Kuan newspapers will be served with the summonses as soon as possible, said Lt. Gen. Jongrak Suthanond, who is heading the investigation. He did not give a date.
Under Thai law, the summonses would require the editors to show up at a police station and acknowledge the complaint filed on Wednesday by Gen. Sant Sarutanond. Once the editors acknowledge the complaint, police have 45 days to ask prosecutors to prepare a case.
Defamation and libel is punishable by a maximum two years in prison and a fine of 200,000 baht (US$4,900). --AP