PETALING JAYA: Malaysian intelligence has confirmed that Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) splinter group leader and master bomb-maker Noordin Mat Top is currently not in the country.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said that Noordin, the chief suspect in the twin hotel bombings in Jakarta last week, was not in the country.
“I don’t know where he is; I can only confirm that he’s not here,” he told reporters after the launch of a safe city initiative in the Ara Damansara township here Tuesday.
Hishammuddin said Malaysia intelligence was working very closely with their Indonesian counterparts to hunt the terrorists involved in the bombing.
The suicide bombings at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels last Friday that killed seven and wounded 50 came four years after the last serious terrorist attack in Indonesia.
Explosive material recovered from the scene was “identical” to that used by JI, Indonesian police said.
Asked to comment on terrorism experts naming Noordin as the one responsible, Hishammuddin said there were no real indication that he was behind the attacks.
“It is not a question of one person being responsible because terrorism is a global phenomenon which involves a network of people,” he said.
He added that Malaysian authorities were monitoring Noordin’s followers in the country.
He claimed that the recent detention of three men under the Internal Security Act in Johor before the bombing in Jakarta showed that “Malaysian intelligence had been doing a good job” but could not disclose any information because it would jeopardise investigations.
On whether the detention was linked to the Jakarta bombings, he said, “I’m not in the position to tell you that they are directly related to the bombings, but they are terrorists.”
The three locals, aged between 43 and 53, were arrested by Special Branch officers on June 25 following months of investigations. They were believed to be attempting to revive the JI movement in Malaysia.