Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) said on Wednesday (January 11) that a 38-year-old teacher with Ministry of Education (MoE) was arrested as he planned to travel to Palestine to take up armed Jihad, reported Starits Times.
The ISD said that Mohamed Khairul Riduan Mohamed Sarip was arrested in October 2022 under Internal Security Act. Singapore’s Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said on Wednesday that Sarip was first public servant to be arrested under terror charges.
Sarip was reportedly radicalised due to online videos including those of foreign preachers.
“We have made clear our policy that if you think of going abroad to fight for any cause, we will arrest you and we have a zero-tolerance approach,” said Shanmugam as quoted by Straits Times
“We have arrested others who have similarly thought of going to fight.”
The ISD said that Sarip, a Singaporean national, was prepared to travel to Gaza, Palestine in order to take up arms. In order to avoid getting detected, he planned to pretend that he was going there for humanitarian work. He was planning to join Hamas’ military wing.
Sarip had acquired weapons-handling skills during his national service in Singapore and he was confident that these skills would come in handy in Palestine.
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