Mas Selamat Kastari was arrested with the cooperation of Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian intelligence agencies, Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein told reporters.
"Mas Selamat is under our detention and being investigated right now. He was planning something," Hishamuddin said. He refused to give details, and also would not say if Mas Selamat would be handed over to Singapore, where he had been jailed.
The father of four, Mas Selamat first came to prominence in December 2001 when he fled Singapore following an Internal Security Department operation against Jemaah Islamiyah.
He was arrested by the Indonesian police on Bintan island in January 2006 and handed over to Singapore authorities.
Sidney Jones, an expert on Southeast Asian terror groups, said while the suspected militant worked with members of Jemaah Islamiyah network in Indonesia, there was no evidence he was directly linked to the Bali bombings.
His arrest in Malaysia, she added, indicated the militant group's reach.
"The fact that he's been in Malaysia this whole time ... says something about the strength of the JI network there," she said.
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