JAKARTA, March 5: A Singaporean terrorist suspect told an Indonesian court on Thursday he had plotted to bomb the city state’s Changi airport in 2002 but the plan had been cancelled.

Mohammad Hasan bin Saynudin told the court that he and Mas Selamat bin Kastari, the alleged leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network in Singapore, had planned the operation in Bangkok.

“I left Singapore in 2002 with Mas Selamat Kastari and went to Bangkok, and in Bangkok we planned to bomb Changi airport but the plan was cancelled,” he said.

He said nothing more about the plot in court but prosecutor Totok Bambang told journalists later that Indonesian authorities believed the plan was called off at the last minute.

“Hasan... had obtained a ticket from Bangkok to Singapore on Aeroflot and he read a newspaper story that morning which said something about the bombing of a plane, so he thought better to cancel the plan since security at Changi airport would surely have been tightened,” he said.

The prosecutor said Hasan, who claims to have met Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2000, then entered Indonesia where he is on trial for leading an alleged terrorist cell linked to some of the region’s most wanted militants. —AFP
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