First person to be re-detained under ISA released again

SINGAPORE — For the second time, former lawyer and polytechnic law lecturer Abdul Basheer Abdul Kader has been released from detention, with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) saying that he “no longer posed a security threat that required preventive detention”.

Abdul Basheer, 27, made news in 2012, when he became the first person to be re-detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) after he was thought to have been successfully rehabilitated.

He was first detained from February 2007 to February 2010, after it was found that he had made specific plans to pursue “militant jihad” in Afghanistan. He was then released on Suspension Direction in 2010 — a suspension of one’s detention, subject to conditions and restrictions.

In 2011, he was placed under a Restriction Order, during which the authorities found that he had “reverted” to his past intention to engage in armed violence overseas, and he was detained again in October 2012. On Friday (July 30), the MHA said his Order of Detention was suspended in February this year.

The ministry said whether a detainee is suitable for release is premised on whether he poses “an imminent threat to Singapore’s security at that point in time”. 

The decision also factors in the detainee’s progress in rehabilitation, the assessments of psychologists, Internal Security Department case officers, detention centre wardens and religious counsellors, the ministry said, adding they are placed under a tight monitoring and supervision regime after their release.

Meanwhile, the MHA has also allowed the Restriction Order on Rijal Yadri Jumari, 35, to lapse, after it expired in March. Rijal was a member of the Jemaah Islamiyah’s (JI) “Al-Ghuraba” cell in Pakistan. He was detained under the ISA from March 2008 to March 2012, and was placed under Restriction Order thereafter.