KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has a 95 per cent success rate in its rehabilitation and deradicalisation programmes in combating terrorism and violent extremism.
Special Branch director Datuk Seri Muhammad Fuzi Harun said among the 240 detainees arrested between 2001 and 2011, only 13 relapse cases were reported.
"Only five per cent of the released detainees returned to their old antics which indicated a 95 per cent success rate.
"The rest of the former militants had successfully reintegrated and returned to mainstream society," he said at the International Conference on Deradicalisation and Countering Violent Extremism (IDC) today.
Fuzi said the rehabilitation period must comply with legal provisions under the Prevention of Crime Act (Poca) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota).
"This is called a production order and we will use this provision to give as much input to the detainees or their family members to avoid relapse cases which would jeopardise the nation's security," he said.
To date, Fuzi said, there were 157 militants in custody including foreigners.
"Out of that figure, 27 are foreigners with a majority of them from Indonesia. All of them have been deported to their countries of origin," he said, adding that 47 Malaysians were believed to be in Syria presently.
He added that since 2012, 72 Malaysians had been identified as having enlisted with the Islamic State (IS) in Syria.
Fuzi also said the usage of the Electronic Monitoring Device (EMD) for former detained militants had been ongoing and that it had a legal provision under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma).
"We have not imposed this system on IS detainees extensively but we are going to implement it very soon as we have a reason to believe that if they are at large, the country's security would be at risk," he added.