Reuters ahead with arrest of militant on the run

Reuters was hours ahead of other news agencies May 8 in reporting the capture of Singapore’s most-wanted man, who was linked to the group blamed for the Bali bombings of 2002 that killed over 200 people. Thanks to a snippet of news that popped up on the Singapore Straits Times’ website in the middle of the night, Reuters moved quickly to confirm the arrest in Malaysia of Mas Selamat Kastari, breaking its story at 4 a.m. Dow Jones ran a story over two-and-a-half hours later, citing local television reports, and Bloomberg took another hour to match the story, when the Singapore government announced the arrest at 8 a.m. Mas Selamat, who escaped from a Singapore prison last year, has been blamed for a foiled plot to bomb the city-state’s Changi Airport. Security experts say he was the alleged leader of the Singapore cell of the radical Islamic group Jemaah Islamiah. His arrest was important because it demonstrated the effectiveness of cross-border co-operation in the fight against terrorism and scotched any moves he might have planned to hook up with militants in Indonesia.