The wife of a detained Malaysian militant today denied that her husband was trained as a pilot by al-Qaeda to crash a plane into a Los Angeles skyscraper and called his release.

"I do not think he can do it," Saodah Matin, wife of engineer Zaini Zakaria told AFP .

"My husband is a good man," she said, choking with tears.

Zaini is among three men allegedly trained by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network to take part in the attack on the US.

US President George W Bush has said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, thought to be one of the masterminds of the September 11, 2001 attacks, planned to hijack a plane and fly into LA's tallest building, the 310-metre US Bank Tower, also known as Library Tower.

Bush said earlier this month that instead of using Arab hijackers, as in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the plot called for "young men from Southeast Asia whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion."

Zaini has been detained by Malaysian police since December 2002 under the country's tough Internal Security Act (ISA) that permits two-year detention periods that can be renewed indefinitely.

Saodah said she last met her husband last December at the Kemunting Detention Centre in the northern state of Perak.

"He is in good health. I pray and hope he will be freed soon. My five-year-old daughter always asks why father cannot come home," she said.

Saodah said Zaini had advised her to be "patient and have fate in Allah."

Allegedly met with Hambali

A former senior security official had said that Zaini was sent to train in al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan in 1999.

It was in these camps that he allegedly met the network's top people, including Hambali, a leader of the al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiah.

Zaini then returned to Malaysia and obtained a licence to fly a small plane, and was to have started learning how to fly a jet in Australia.

"That part of the plan never materialised. Malaysian authorities managed to detain him in 2002," the ex-official said.

Rights groups are also urging the government to free the engineer.

Chang Lih Kang, spokesman of rights group Voice of the Malaysian People (Suaram) last week said the Malaysian government should free Zaini or charge him in an open court.

But Zaini has told Malaysian officials he pulled out of the al-Qaeda plan after witnessing the September 11 attacks.

Malaysia is holding more than 100 people under the ISA, more than 80 of whom alleged Islamic militants.