US investigators operating under a veil of secrecy spent two hours in the isolated Kamunting detention centre in Perak today, questioning a terror suspect over links to the Sept 11 terror attacks.

Three men believed to be Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents were driven in a car with United States diplomatic plates into and out of the Kamunting camp, some 300 kilometres north of Kuala Lumpur, without speaking to waiting reporters.

The agents were there to interrogate Yazid Sufaat, who is alleged to have had connections with Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to have been put on trial in the United States over the attacks on New York and Washington last year.

Yazid's lawyer, Saiful Izham Ramli, told AFP last week that the former army captain would cooperate with the US investigators, whose presence in Malaysia has not even been acknowledged by the US embassy here.

The US news blackout is believed to be aimed at minimizing any risk of offending the government, which reacted angrily to suggestions in some western media early this year that Malaysia was a "launchpad" for the Sept 11 suicide hijackings.

Appointment letter

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has pointed out that the hijackers held meetings in several countries ahead of the attacks, including the United States itself, and he has won plaudits from Washington for his support of the war on terrorism.

Yazid, a 38-year-old biochemistry graduate of California State University, who has been held in Kamunting since last December, is alleged to have hosted Moussaoui when he visited Malaysia a year before the attacks on New York and Washington.

He is said to have provided Moussaoui, a Moroccan-born French citizen, with a letter appointing him as US marketing agent for a Malaysian computer software company.

The questioning of Yazid comes against the backround of reports in the US that prosecutors may move the case against Moussaoui to a military tribunal at a US naval base in Cuba out of fear the prosecution could fail in a civilian court.

Moussaoui, 34, has admitted being a member of al-Qaeda - the militant group which has taken credit for the attacks - and a sympathizer of its leader, Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, but has denied involvement in the attacks.

Arrested in August 2001 for immigration violations, Moussaoui was behind bars when the attack occurred, a fact which some officials have said prevented him from taking his place as the "20th hijacker" on Sept 11.

On Hambali's request

Yazid also allegedly allowed his appartment to be used in early 2000 for a meeting of al-Qaeda operatives, including hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi who were aboard the plane which crashed into the Pentagon.

Intelligence sources say Yazid was not at the meeting but made his apartment available at the request of radical Indonesian cleric Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali ( photo ).

Hambali is believed to be both a member of al-Qaeda and operational commander of the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militant group, blamed for the Bali bombing last month.

Malaysia is holding more than 70 suspected Islamic militants, many of them allegedly members of JI, which aims to create a pan-Islamic state encompassing Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and southern Philippines.

No evidence against Yazid or any of the others has been presented in court as they are held under Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinite detention without trial. AFP