Singapore's government said the suspected leader of the Singapore wing of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group is back in its custody two-and-a-half years after a daring jailbreak.

The Home Ministry said Mas Selamat Kastari is "currently under investigation" and being held under the country's Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial. Malaysian police deported the suspect Friday—nearly 18 months after capturing him in southern Malaysia.

Mr. Kastari escaped from prison in 2008—embarrassing tightly policed Singapore—by squeezing through a bathroom window at its Whitley Road Detention Center. Mr. Kastari spent 12 months on the run, evading a massive manhunt and raising fears that he was receiving support from a network of terrorist operatives across the region.

Malaysian police tracked down Mr. Kastari, who is of Indonesian descent, in Johor state in April 2009 and held him for interrogation until Friday, when authorities handed him back to their Singaporean counterparts. Singapore praised the cooperation on the suspect's transfer, which came on the heels of bilateral talks between Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Singaporean authorities accuse Mr. Kastari, who is in his late 40s, of being the chief of the Singapore wing of Jemaah Islamiyah, the group responsible for the 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, which killed 202 people, as well as a slew of other attacks. Officials say Mr. Kastari hatched a plan to hijack an aircraft and crash it into Singapore's Changi airport, one of the busiest terminals in the region.

"Malaysia's Islamic opposition party said Wednesday that a vote by French lawmakers to outlaw the full-face veil had angered Muslims and could trigger terrorist attacks.

The Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) said France should adopt a path of engagement with Muslims instead of introducing the controversial bill.

'It will widen the efforts of many organisations to narrow the gap between the Western and Islamic world,' PAS deputy president Nasaruddin Mat Isa told a press conference.

'We hope it will not spark further terror activities. The French move has sparked anger around the Islamic world.'

Nasaruddin said the ban violated individual rights, and that Muslim women should be allowed to wear what they want in France, just as non-Muslim French women are permitted to dress as they wish in Muslim-majority Malaysia.

'They can come here and wear their bikinis,' he said.

PAS lawmaker Hatta Ramli said he did not accept arguments that the burqa -- a full-body covering with a mesh over the face, and the niqab, a full-face veil that leaves an opening for the eyes -- suppress women's rights.

'I don't think that holds water,' he said."