KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian police said Friday they have detained another 15 suspected militants, including several foreigners, for smuggling firearms and plotting attacks on places of worship.
National police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said six Malaysians, six Filipinos, a Bangladeshi restaurant owner and a couple from a north African country were detained between March and May.
Among the Malaysians was a 17-year-old student who made six Molotov cocktails he planned to use against entertainment outlets, churches and Hindu temples in Kuala Lumpur, Fuzi said. The student, a suspected Daesh member, tested one of his devices in an open area and was detained in April, an hour after he produced a video on social media warning of the attacks, he said.
The police chief said a 51-year-old Malaysian woman was held on May 9 during general elections for planning to ram a car into non-Muslims at a voting center. “In addition, the suspect also planned to drive into non-Muslim worship places using a car filled with gas cylinders as explosives,” he said.
Fuzi’s statement said a 33-year-old Malaysian was detained after he was deported by Turkey for trying to slip into Syria to join the Islamic State. Two other Malaysians had planned to kidnap and kill police officers and also attack places of worship, it said.
Fuzi said the African couple, both in their early 20s and suspected of having IS ties, were detained in April and since have been deported. Their specific home country wasn’t disclosed.
The 41-year-old Bangladeshi was believed to be involved in smuggling weapons for terrorists.
Another Malaysian and six Filipinos, aged between 22 and 49, were held in April in Sabah state on Borneo island for being part of a militant cell collecting firearms to wage “jihad” in Marawi city in the Philippines, he said. Marawi was the scene of a six-month militant siege last year.
Hundreds of people suspected of having ties to the Islamic State have been detained in Malaysia in the past few years.
Malaysia: 15 suspected of planning attacks, smuggling arms
Malaysia: 15 suspected of planning attacks, smuggling arms
- National police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said six Malaysians, six Filipinos, a Bangladeshi restaurant owner and a couple from a north African country were detained between March and May
- The police chief said a 51-year-old Malaysian woman was held on May 9 during general elections for planning to ram a car into non-Muslims at a voting center
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
