Kuala Lumpur - A desperate Mas Selamat Kastari could find only two friends willing to help him hide after he escaped from the Whitley Road Detention Centre last year and swam the 1km across to a Johor beach.

Abdul Matin Anol Rahmat and Johar Hassan came to the Singaporean terrorist's aid, police sources said. All others shunned him.

The two men gave him shelter for free for more than a year in a secluded kampung house in Skudai. For that, they were arrested on April 1, the same day police nabbed Mas Selamat while he was sound asleep.

Soon after entering Johor from Singapore, the alleged chief of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant group in Singapore met with his two trusted friends.

This according to a report by Bernama.

It quoted a source saying: "Soon after swimming from Woodlands, Singapore, Mas Selamat went to Ulu Tiram to look for Matin, believed to be a JI ordinary member."

The source added that throughout his time in Johor, the JI chief was believed to have been in contact only with these two trusted friends.

Mas Selamat had also planned to flee to southern Philippines or Indonesia but did not go ahead with it, thinking he was safe in Johor, the source said

Bernama's source, who said he was familiar with the operation to nab Singapore's most wanted man, added that Mas Selamat did not know was that he was also being shadowed.

'Less destroyed than we thought'

The report also quoted the source refuting a previous comment that International Crisis Group analyst Sidney Jones had made in a report in The Straits Times.

The international think tank staff had said that Mas Selamat's year-long concealment in Malaysia "suggested the JI network in Malaysia may be less destroyed than we thought".

However, the Bernama's source had dismissed Mr Jones' comment as "illogical and unacceptable" and shared his doubts as to whether the analyst had a clear grasp of the JI situation in Malaysia.

'Bad swimmer, but a survivor'

Jakarta - A convicted Singaporean terrorist (top right) who knew Mas Selamat Kastari from the days when both were on the run said yesterday that the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) leader was a 'bad swimmer'.

But he was also a determined survivor, added Mohammad Hassan Saynudin, who is serving time here for killing a Christian school teacher and planning terrorist attacks in Indonesia.

Hassan, at one time a leader of the Singapore JI, was convicted last month and given an 18-year jail sentence.

For more The Straits Times stories, click here.