A former university lecturer who was suspected of a role in the 2002 Bali bombings has been released from detention in Malaysia, an official said Tuesday.

Wan Min Wan Mat, 45, had been in detention since September 2002.

He testified in a written statement read out by prosecutors at the trial in Indonesia of one of the Bali bombing suspects in 2003. At the time, Wan Min was accused by Indonesian police of being a mastermind of the attack on Bali nightspots in which most of the 202 victims were western tourists.

Wan Min denied specific knowledge of the attack, but admitted in his statement that he had sent US$30,500 in three instalments to a senior member of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) extremist group to finance "operations in Indonesia as previously planned" in Bangkok.

He said he believed the Bali bombers were inspired by an edict issued by Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and the attack was intended as a "warning for foreigners - Americans and Australians who are setting their feet in Bali and who are infidels and enemies of Islam."

Wan Min will be restricted to the town of Kota Baru, capital of Malaysia's northern Kelantan state, and must report daily to police, officials said.

"There is evidence that he is no longer a threat to national security but police are monitoring his movements," a government source told AFP .

Students released

Also freed Monday after two years in detention were five students who allegedly trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a new generation of leaders of JI, officials said.

The students were detained in September 2003 after being arrested and deported by authorities in Pakistan, where they were studying at an Islamic school.

Reports at the time said they had been trained in Afghanistan to carry out bombing and suicide attacks against US interests in Malaysia and worldwide.

None of the suspects was brought to trial.

The Utusan Malaysia newspaper quoted an unnamed police source as saying: "The government has decided to free them because they have shown positive response to rehabilitation programmes and are no longer a threat to national security."

Malaysia is holding more than 90 alleged Muslim militants under the Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinite detention without trial.

Many of them are suspected members of JI, which has been blamed for a string attacks and is believed by authorities to have links with al-Qaeda.