THERE is no certainty that Yazid Sufaat, who is being detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota), will be set free next month upon the expiry of his detention order, said Muhyiddin Yassin.

The home minister said the final decision on his release rested with the Prevention of Terrorism Board.

“His two-year detention may end soon. But there are procedures that have to be followed before any decision is made on the matter.

“The board has to review his conduct and determine if he has changed during the period under detention and then, it will make a decision,” he said after attending an event in Pontian today.

He said the Home Ministry would also have to make a decision on the matter once the board had its say.

“The board will meet and decide. I can only make a decision after that,” he said.

Yazid, who was linked to international terrorist organisations, including the branch of al-Qaeda responsible for the 9/11 attacks in the United States, has been incarcerated three times in 17 years for terrorism, including for working with the Jemaah Islamiah terror network to set off a series of blasts in Singapore – a plot that was foiled by the security forces.

His record showed him to be an inveterate jihadist who had returned to the terror network each time he was released from jail. Not only did he prove immune to deradicalisation efforts in jail, he also radicalised other inmates.

Counter-terrorism chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay told The Straits Times that Yazid had the uncanny ability to recruit people to his cause. 

“At Tapah Prison, some inmates were radicalised by him; that’s how dangerous he is. Till this day, Yazid remains the most challenging militant for us to rehabilitate,” said Ayob.

Ayob declined to say whether that was sufficient reason to keep him behind bars.

“The final decision to release him has not been made yet by the board, but his detention period will expire this November. Whether or not the detention order will be extended, the decision will be made before the expected date of release,” he said.

One of Yazid’s recruits, Muhamad Razin Sharhan Mustafa Kamal, had told the Kuala Lumpur High Court in 2015 that the former had undergone military training in Afghanistan, met Osama bin Laden and had taken part in “jihad”.

Razin said he had met Yazid for the first time in 2012 and was detained in Beirut, Lebanon, over suspected links to al-Qaeda.

“When Yazid was released in 2008, he thought he would be safe and wouldn’t be arrested again. That’s why he went on to recruit more people, including Razin. But Razin and another man were not recruited to join IS; they were roped in to join the anti-Syrian government militant group Jabhat Al Nusrah, while one more was sent to the Southern Philippines to be a suicide bomber,” Ayob said. 

Yazid, a former army captain, was arrested for the first time in 2002 under the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allowed for indefinite detention without trial. He was released in 2008 after he showed signs of “remorse” and “repentance”.

He was detained for the second time in 2013 for recruiting for the Islamic State. He was sentenced to four years in Perak’s Tapah Prison.

Following his release, Yazid was rearrested in December 2017, again for recruiting, this time targeting fellow inmates for al-Qaeda while in jail.

He first came to the attention of counter-terror agencies in the 1990s, when he attempted to make a bioweapon out of anthrax in Afghanistan. Back in Malaysia, he opened his home to the leaders of al-Qaeda, who met there to plot – successfully – attacks on the World Trade Centre towers in New York on September 11, 2001. – October 19, 2019.