A licensed Singaporean money changer who made three trips to Sri Lanka to visit a radical preacher who masterminded the April 21 terror attacks there has been detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA).
Kuthubdeen Haja Najumudeen, 36, had since 2011 been listening to Zahran Hashim's online religious lectures and regularly contacted him for religious guidance, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said yesterday in announcing his detention.
Haja also donated funds to Zahran and his group, the National Thowheed Jamaath, which Colombo has blamed for the bombings that killed more than 250 people and injured 500 others. Haja was detained in May this year.
MHA also announced the detention, in a separate case, of former delivery assistant Suderman Samikin, 47. The Singaporean had joined a pro-ISIS Facebook group and was prepared to help two pro-ISIS elements who wanted to visit Singapore to buy tactical gear to fight in Syria. He was detained earlier this month.
The ministry said investigations established that both he and Haja had been radicalised, and that both harboured the intention to travel to Syria to join terror group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
On Haja, MHA said he made the trips to visit Zahran between May 2015 and October 2016. "Investigations did not surface any indication that Haja was involved in, or had prior knowledge of, the April 21, 2019, terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka."
Analysts have described Zahran as a charismatic ideologue whose YouTube videos, mainly in Tamil, articulated hardline teachings.
MHA added that Haja developed an interest in ISIS in 2013, when he came across news of the terror group online. He supported ISIS' so-called caliphate and violent cause, and searched online for video clips of atrocities and terrorist attacks linked to the group.
These included videos of beheadings, and recordings of the terror attacks in Paris in November 2015.
Haja conducted "extensive research" online from 2015 for his plan to migrate to Syria to join ISIS, but later decided against the move as he feared being killed or injured there, said the ministry.
"His support for ISIS, however, continued, including at the point when he was arrested in May 2019."
As for Suderman, he became radicalised after encountering lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki - an Al-Qaeda ideologue who was killed in 2011 by an American drone strike in Yemen - and ISIS' propaganda some time in 2013. Suderman had been searching online for information on the Syrian conflict.
MHA said: "He soon bought into ISIS' violent ideology and, by February 2014, was prepared to take up arms to fight alongside ISIS in Syria, in the belief that he would be a martyr if he died while doing so."
Suderman joined a pro-ISIS Facebook group in April 2014 that was reportedly created by a fighter based in Syria. He actively sought advice on how to join the group, and was directed to online sources where he learnt about travel routes to Syria.
While he was prepared to help the two pro-ISIS contacts whom he got to know through the group, their planned trip to Singapore did not take place. Suderman also offered one of them financial assistance to undertake armed violence in Syria and, in turn, the duo invited him to join an overseas pro-ISIS group in which they were involved.
MHA added that Suderman was in prison for drug consumption from July 2014 until last month. "While he was in prison, he continued to harbour intentions to join ISIS. He was arrested under the ISA upon his release," the ministry said.
