Yesterday, the paper's scoop artist broke the news that Singapore's most wanted terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari had been captured in Malaysia.

Mr Lopez, 45, said he received a tip-off earlier this week about the fugitive's re-arrest and verified it immediately with three regional intelligence sources.

'I knew I had a great story and that we had to break it fast,' he said.

Mas Selamat, 48, bolted from the Whitley Road Detention Centre on Feb 27 last year, triggering the biggest-ever manhunt in Singapore and the region.

The Straits Times story was picked up immediately by wire agencies and international media, including the BBC and The New York Times, prompting officials from both countries to confirm the capture in separate press conferences.

Mr Lopez has delivered several exclusive stories on the terror front.

Last year, for example, he broke the news that the Malaysian government had released more than a dozen Muslim extremists linked to the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror organisation without publicity.

The move raised eyebrows among the region's intelligence community and security experts as many feared that the freed men might still be anti-Western and could easily return to their underground networks.

In February 2002, while Mr Lopez was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, he pieced together a story on Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, who is the South-east Asian point man for an Al Qaeda-linked network.

Read the full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.