Malaysia hands over Chennai terror plotter to Sri Lanka

Chennai: Sleuths in the Chennai office of National Investigation agency are reworking their strategy to extradite terror suspect Mohammed Hussein, a Sri Lankan national arrested in Kuala Lumpur in May this year for plotting terror strikes in India.  “The Malaysian government handed him over to authorities in Colombo last week rejecting our request to extradite him to India,” NIA sources said here. “Now we will have to go through the process again and approach the Sri Lankan government,” NIA sources said.

Senior NIA officials had made many trips to Malaysia since May particularly after the KL police claimed that Mohamed Hussein, 47, was part of the network handled by Pakistan’s ISI targeting US and Israel missions in South India. He was believed to be a close associate of Sakir Hussian, another Lankan arrested in Chennai on April 29 by Tamil Nadu Q branch for spying for Pakistan. The case was later handed over to NIA in view of the international ramification of the network.

The NIA officials had been till now maintaining that they were on the right track and will extradite Mohamed Hussein soon.  “Malaysian authorities have not executed a production warrant issued by a special court in Chennai seeking the extradition,”NIA official disclosed.  Instead he had been sent back to Sri Lanka, his country of origin where he has been  charged with murder.