TV documentary to show Mas Selamat capture
Never-before-seen footage of Mas Selamat Kastari's capture will be shown on a television documentary this month.
The 50-year-old Singaporean terrorist detainee, who was recaptured in an early morning raid at Kampung Tawakal in Skudai, Johor two years ago, is the subject of a documentary called "Mas Selamat: The Fugitive Terrorist".
The documentary, which will be aired on Crime & Investigation Network (StarHub Channel 403) on 30 June, traces the hunt for Singapore's head of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a regional terrorist group after his escape from detention in 2008. At the time, his escape from the Whitley Road Detention Centre triggered a nearly year-long nationwide hunt in Singapore.
Director Ahmad Yazid, 27, and executive producer Lydia Lubon, 32, obtained the exclusive footage and produced the show under Rack Focus Films, a production company based in Malaysia.
"The angle was about the pay-off of tracking down and finally arresting Asia's most-wanted fugitive," Lubon told The Straits Times over the telephone from Kuala Lumpur.
"We are lucky we have a good relationship with the police here in Malaysia because we've done three crime films with them under AETN (cable TV channel provider) and were able to get exclusive actual video police footage - to be shown on television, or anywhere, for the first time - of the capture of Mas Selamat.
"That was really special about our film as we actually show footage of him being arrested by the special forces here in Johor Baru," she added.
The programme will tell the story of how Mas Selamat became a JI militant, his arrest and escape from detention in February 2008 and subsequently his recapture in Johor in April 2009.
He was returned to Singapore last year and remains in detention under the Internal Security Act.
