THE three-member panel investigating the escape of detainee Mas Selamat Kastari is doing its work behind closed doors and that is the best way, Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng said yesterday.

Their main aim is to get to the bottom of how the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist fled the Internal Security Department's (ISD) Whitley Road Detention Centre on February 27, but some of the information unearthed will have to remain under wraps.

The reason: the inquiry demands a thorough examination of the centre, including its security and how ISD officers conduct their investigations and gather intelligence.

But he repeated an assurance he had given earlier, that once the committee finished its work, the Government would give 'a full account' of how Mas Selamat escaped and what would be done to prevent another escape.

Mr Wong spoke to reporters yesterday after a walkabout at a market and food centre in Shunfu Mart.

He said the search for Mas Selamat was still going on, with the officers involved remaining determined and following all leads.

'I understand that they have intelligence analysis of the man which may be pertinent to their search on the ground,' he said, without elaborating.

Mr Wong, who is the Home Affairs Minister, responded to a call by Workers' Party chairman Sylvia Lim that it would be more transparent to have a Commission of Inquiry set up under the Inquiries Act so that all the findings would be made public.

He said that regardless of whether the inquiry was by a Committee or Commission, not all the information would be revealed because the detention centre is a 'sensitive installation' holding detainees under the Internal Security Act, including terrorists.

'Its focus is on intelligence collection in relation to an ongoing investigation pertinent to national security. It is not simply a prison to incarcerate persons to discharge a judicial punishment on conviction of an offence,' he said.

What was most important was to provide the committee members unrestricted access to do their work, and it was best to let them do their work behind closed doors, he said.

'It is not an exercise at grandstanding or playing to the gallery,' he added.

Mr Wong also defended the choice of panel members, in light of criticism that they include a deputy secretary of his ministry, Dr Choong May Ling, and former police chief Tee Tua Ba.

He said there were no grounds to doubt their impartiality or independence.

Dr Choong oversees security policy but is not linked to the ISD or any operational department. Former police commissioner Tee retired in 1997 and has since been Singapore's ambassador to various countries.

And committee chairman Goh Joon Seng had 'impeccable standing' as a retired High Court judge and member of the Presidential Council of Advisers.

'They are not about to put their own considerable achievements and good reputations at risk to do anything other than a thorough and impartial job at seeking the truth,' he said.

The panel has been working long hours 'examining many witnesses from the lowest to the highest rank' and over the weekend.

Mr Wong also revealed that a separate probe by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the possibility of an inside job leading to the escape is almost completed.

Several dozen witnesses and officers have been interviewed, including ISD officers and the Gurkhas who guard the detention centre.

The CID has done a forensic examination which included the toilet from which Mas Selamat vanished.

Once its probe is over, the case will be sent to the Attorney-General's Chambers to decide if anyone should be charged with a crime.

cheekin@sph.com.sg

SENSITIVE DETAILS

'It is not an exercise at grandstanding or playing to the gallery.'
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER WONG KAN SENG, on why the committee will work behind closed doors

MAS SELAMAT KEY IN AL-QAEDA AND JI LINK, SOUTH-EAST ASIA

NETWORK OF 'TRIP WIRES' LEFT IN AREAS COMBED BY POLICE, HOME