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Look closely: Missing points in Mas Selamat’s account?
by Christopher Ong
REPORTS TODAY WERE awash with accounts of how Mas Selamat’s immediate family had sheltered him after he made his escape from the Whitley Road Detention center, one of Singapore’s highest security prison.According to the statements made in parliament detailing Mas Selamat’s escape, he was offered refuge in his brother Asmom’s flat in Tampines by his niece, Nur Aini.
Although initially reluctant to give any form of assistance to Mas Selamat, both his brother and wife gave in after being persuaded by their daughter. These accounts find Nur Aini most culpable in offering assistance to Mas Selamat. If the reports were accurate, she not only assisted in giving Mas Selamat supplies and a make-over as a woman among various forms of help, but also helped to destroy his Whitley Detention Center (WDC) clothes.
However, there seems to be several interesting points of difference surrounding the story of Mas Selamat’s escape and the subsequent account of how he was offered assistance by his brother and family. One of the biggest questions surrounding this would be on the the WDC attire that Nur Aini had apparently helped to destroy.
Now, according to accounts given, Mas Selamat was wearing up to three layers of clothing as he entered the cubicle to make his subsequent escape from the Whitley Detention Center. This was orally presented by then Minister of Home Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng at a parliamentary session on 18th October 2010. As Mas Selamat entered the cubile, he was wearing a WDC-issued attire beneath two layers of civilian clothes – a dark green baju kurung and dark blue pants, and then a light green baju kurung and grey pants on top of it.
According to this earlier account, Mas Selamat had then taken off the light green baju kurung and threw it on the ground after he had made his escape, as the WDC guards has seen him in that attire and he wanted to ultimately avoid detection. This then leaves Mas Selamat with two layers of clothes: the dark green baju kurung on top of the WDC-issued attire.
Now, the mystery still remains about how Mas Selamat had made his way from WDC in Whitley Road to Tampines, where his brother’s flat was. An investigation on Google Maps shows that the distance between the two, Whitley Road and Tampines Central, is some 15-16km away.
This is, however, predicated on the fact that one takes a vehicle, a car, and drives from Whitley Road through the various expressways to reach Tampines Central.
But Mas Selamat did not have a car. Worse, he had a limp.
Given that a massive manhunt took place immediately upon his escape, he must have been extremely careful with his appearance and movements to escape detection. If Mas Selamat wanted to do that, surely it would do him good to take long detours and walk off the usual traveling tracks.
The question then is this. If Mas Selamat took such a long time — 3 days, in fact — to reach Tampines Central, he surely must have taken a massive detour wherever he was traveling to stay off the security radar. If this was the case, given that Singapore has some of the highest humidity levels and heat, why would Mas Selamat continue to wear two layers of clothing on him as he made his escape?
Would he not want to travel as light as possible? What was the purpose of wearing the WDC-issued attire all the way to Tampines, only for his niece to destroy it?
The WDC-issued attire must surely be brightly colored, or at least not easily malleable into the everyday clothing on the average person. Why would Mas Selamat continue to wear such an article of clothing under his top-most layer that might have led to his detection?
The answers to this question, and many others like this — such as how he managed to walk from Whitley Road to Tampines Central, or sought refuge at an immediate family’s house just days after his arrest and yet avoid detection, or if he did literally dress as a woman and take a bus with the ez-link card given to the point where he swam across to Malaysia — may very well be left silent.
As Workers Party Chair Sylvia Lim said in a press release after Mas Selamat’s escape, the inquiry lacks a certain transparency that should befit cases of such enormous scale. The case of Mas Selamat’s escape is convened under the Prisons Act, which states that all such inquiries shall not be opened to the public. The Committee’s submitted report, or any part of its proceedings cannot be released to anyone without the written permission of the Minister.
Singaporeans may just have well to make do with the narratives given to them without knowing what really happened.
Look closely: Missing points in Mas Selamat’s account?
by Christopher Ong
REPORTS TODAY WERE awash with accounts of how Mas Selamat’s immediate family had sheltered him after he made his escape from the Whitley Road Detention center, one of Singapore’s highest security prison.According to the statements made in parliament detailing Mas Selamat’s escape, he was offered refuge in his brother Asmom’s flat in Tampines by his niece, Nur Aini.
Although initially reluctant to give any form of assistance to Mas Selamat, both his brother and wife gave in after being persuaded by their daughter. These accounts find Nur Aini most culpable in offering assistance to Mas Selamat. If the reports were accurate, she not only assisted in giving Mas Selamat supplies and a make-over as a woman among various forms of help, but also helped to destroy his Whitley Detention Center (WDC) clothes.
However, there seems to be several interesting points of difference surrounding the story of Mas Selamat’s escape and the subsequent account of how he was offered assistance by his brother and family. One of the biggest questions surrounding this would be on the the WDC attire that Nur Aini had apparently helped to destroy.
Now, according to accounts given, Mas Selamat was wearing up to three layers of clothing as he entered the cubicle to make his subsequent escape from the Whitley Detention Center. This was orally presented by then Minister of Home Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng at a parliamentary session on 18th October 2010. As Mas Selamat entered the cubile, he was wearing a WDC-issued attire beneath two layers of civilian clothes – a dark green baju kurung and dark blue pants, and then a light green baju kurung and grey pants on top of it.
According to this earlier account, Mas Selamat had then taken off the light green baju kurung and threw it on the ground after he had made his escape, as the WDC guards has seen him in that attire and he wanted to ultimately avoid detection. This then leaves Mas Selamat with two layers of clothes: the dark green baju kurung on top of the WDC-issued attire.
Now, the mystery still remains about how Mas Selamat had made his way from WDC in Whitley Road to Tampines, where his brother’s flat was. An investigation on Google Maps shows that the distance between the two, Whitley Road and Tampines Central, is some 15-16km away.
This is, however, predicated on the fact that one takes a vehicle, a car, and drives from Whitley Road through the various expressways to reach Tampines Central.
But Mas Selamat did not have a car. Worse, he had a limp.
Given that a massive manhunt took place immediately upon his escape, he must have been extremely careful with his appearance and movements to escape detection. If Mas Selamat wanted to do that, surely it would do him good to take long detours and walk off the usual traveling tracks.
The question then is this. If Mas Selamat took such a long time — 3 days, in fact — to reach Tampines Central, he surely must have taken a massive detour wherever he was traveling to stay off the security radar. If this was the case, given that Singapore has some of the highest humidity levels and heat, why would Mas Selamat continue to wear two layers of clothing on him as he made his escape?
Would he not want to travel as light as possible? What was the purpose of wearing the WDC-issued attire all the way to Tampines, only for his niece to destroy it?
The WDC-issued attire must surely be brightly colored, or at least not easily malleable into the everyday clothing on the average person. Why would Mas Selamat continue to wear such an article of clothing under his top-most layer that might have led to his detection?
The answers to this question, and many others like this — such as how he managed to walk from Whitley Road to Tampines Central, or sought refuge at an immediate family’s house just days after his arrest and yet avoid detection, or if he did literally dress as a woman and take a bus with the ez-link card given to the point where he swam across to Malaysia — may very well be left silent.
As Workers Party Chair Sylvia Lim said in a press release after Mas Selamat’s escape, the inquiry lacks a certain transparency that should befit cases of such enormous scale. The case of Mas Selamat’s escape is convened under the Prisons Act, which states that all such inquiries shall not be opened to the public. The Committee’s submitted report, or any part of its proceedings cannot be released to anyone without the written permission of the Minister.
Singaporeans may just have well to make do with the narratives given to them without knowing what really happened.
