Five men arrested on suspicion of involvement in militant groups - IGP

Five men were arrested in Johor and Selangor on Nov 9 and 13 on suspicion of involvement in militant groups, according to the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar.

He said all suspects, aged between 22 and 40, were picked up in two special operations mounted by the Counter-Terrorism Division of the Police Special Branch after trying to join the so-called IS militant group in Syria and planning to launch attack several locations in the Klang Valley.

Khalid said three of the suspects were believed to be connected to the IS, while the other two, with the 'Imam Mahdi' militant group.

"Four of them are locals, while the other one is an Indonesian national," he said in a statement here today.

He said two of the suspects - the 22-year-old Indonesian man who works as a supervisor, and a 22-year-old pharmacy assistant at the Health Ministry - were also believed to have planned to leave for Syria to join the IS group.

Khalid said the duo had once been arrested by the Johor police and investigated under the Immigration Act.

He said the other two local men, aged 28 and 30, were arrested in Selangor in suspicion of being members of the militant group known as 'Imam Mahdi'.

"The 28-year-old man was suspected of planning to launch an attack on several locations in the Klang Valley and kill anyone who gets in his way, including his own family members.

"The 30-year-old suspect, on the other hand, is a former cell member of Al-Ghuraba, a fragment of the Jemaah Islamiah, and was once arrested in 2003 in Karachi, Pakistan," he said.

Khalid said investigations were ongoing to identify and track down the remnants of the group.

The IGP said all members of the group were using Facebook to interact among each other.

He said the fifth suspect, aged 40, hailed from Petaling Jaya and had once served as a senior officer at Felda Global Ventures before he opted for the Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS) in August this year.

"The suspect left for Turkey on Oct 21 in his bid to enter Syria and join the IS militant group.

"His trip to Syria was managed by a Somalian national whom he knew through Twitter, but he was arrested by the Turkish authority on Oct 25, along with nine other foreigners from Uighur ethnic group, as well as those from Morocco and Russia, before being deported to Malaysia," he said.

Khalid said all of them were arrested for offences under Chapter VIA of the Penal Code (Offences Relating to Terrorism) and would be investigated under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012.

Meanwhile Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd (FGV) in a statement issued here today said that it would continue to cooperate fully with the relevant authorities to assist in the investigations.

"For the record, all FGV employees are bound by the Employee Code of Ethics and Conduct, which prohibits any involvement in wrongful activites that could tarnish the company's reputation," it said in a statement.

It also stated that the company was firmly against any form of extremism or radicalism, and had zero tolerance in the harming of innocent lives.