Malaysia frees 4 former Jemaah Islamiah suspects

KUALA LUMPUR, June 22 (Reuters) Malaysia has freed four people held without trial under a tough security law for five years over suspected ties to the Jemaah Islamiah militant network, a rights group said today.

The Malaysia-based GMI group, which has been campaigning against the security law, said the authorities did not say why the four had been released.

The government has said in the past it would release detainees if they no longer posed a threat.

Malaysia has used the Internal Security Act, a legacy of its counter-insurgency campaign against the communists during British colonial times, to lock up dozens of suspected Islamic militants since Sept 11, 2001.

The rights group welcomed the release of the four who had been in custody since early 2002, but said there were scores of others still under detention without trial.

''The GMI is annoyed by the selective releases of the ISA detainees,'' the group, known by its Malay acronym GMI, said in a statement.

A spokesman at Malaysia's Internal Security Ministry said he had no immediate comment on the release of the men, earlier believed to be linked with the Jemaah Islamiah.

JI is an Indonesia-based militant group fighting for creation of an Islamic superstate across parts of southeast Asia.

Asian and Western authorities blame the group for a series of attacks including the 2002 bombings that killed more than 200 people on Indonesia's resort island of Bali.

Last October, Malaysia released 17 suspected militants held under the security law as a gesture to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

REUTERS SKB KP1831