 |  | At a press conference on Friday, Mr Wong said the Government did not inform the public of the capture earlier because doing so could jeopardise operational secrecy and may even endanger sources of information. -- ST PHOTO: WANG HUI FEN |
They first knew of this only on Thursday afternoon when all the ministers were having their weekly pre-Cabinet lunch, PM Lee Hsien Loong revealed in a statement on Saturday.
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The PM was informed of the capture of the Singapore Jemaah Islamiah terror leader by Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng 'soon after' he was arrested in Skudai, a town in Johor Baru.
'I knew that ISD had been working hard on the case, and had found some leads which they had given to the Malaysian authorities. But we could not say anything publicly or else it would jeopardise the operation,' he said, explaining why the news was withheld from the other ministers.
'I was happy and relieved that Mas Selamat had been found and arrested before he had done any harm. Kan Seng told me that the Malaysians had asked us to keep this quiet for the time being. I replied that we had to respect this, even though I knew that Singaporeans would be very anxious to know the news. So we held the information very tightly.'
But on Thursday, Mr Wong, who is also the Home Affairs Minister, received a phone call informing him that The Straits Times had asked the Internal Security Department to confirm their scoop which came from its Kuala Lumpur correspondent Leslie Lopez, that Mas Selamat has been arrested by the Malaysians.
'As the story had leaked, we had no choice but to confirm it. It was only then that Kan Seng told the Ministers that Mas Selamat had been arrested, the news had leaked, and we would be confirming the story. They were taken completely by surprise,' said Mr Lee.�
At a press conference on Friday, Mr Wong said the Government did not inform the public of the capture earlier because doing so could jeopardise operational secrecy and may even endanger sources of information.
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