It said his possible release has raised the alarm among counter-terrorism officials in Malaysia.
Yazid, 55, a US-trained biochemist whom the paper described as an “unrepentent terrorist”, is being held at the Simpang Renggam prison in Johor, where he has spent two years in detention under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota).
The act allows detention of a suspect without trial for two years.
In a report today, Straits Times quoted Bukit Aman’s counter-terrorism chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay as saying the final decision to release Yazid has not been made yet by the Prevention of Terrorism Board, but his detention period will expire next month.
“Whether or not the detention order will be extended, the decision will be made before the expected date of release,” Ayob was quoted as saying.
Asked whether Yazid should remain in detention, he said: “Whatever the decision is, we will leave it to the Prevention of Terrorism Board.”
The report said Yazid, who has been jailed three times in the past 17 years for terrorism-related activities, once attempted to produce weapons of mass destruction for al-Qaeda.
It also said Yazid acquired 4 tonnes of ammonium nitrate to prepare for a series of bombings in Singapore in 2000 before the plot by the Jemaah Islamiah terror network was foiled.
According to the report, Yazid attempted to cultivate and load anthrax onto weapons in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
His home in Kuala Lumpur had also been used by senior al-Qaeda members for meetings, it said, and at one meeting, plans to crash planes in the United States on Sept 11, 2001 were discussed.
Straits Times said Yazid is the only Malaysian with direct links to the attacks.
“Despite spending almost two decades behind bars and undergoing an extensive deradicalisation programme, ST understands that Yazid remains totally unrepentant,” the report said.
It quoted Ayob as saying that at the Tapah prison in Perak, some inmates were radicalised by him.
“That’s how dangerous he is. Till this day, Yazid remains the most challenging militant for us to rehabilitate,” Ayob said.
Yazid, a former army captain, was first arrested in 2002 under the Internal Security Act (ISA). He was released in 2008 after undergoing rehabilitation and showed signs of “remorse” and “repentance”.
He was detained for a second time in 2013 under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma), the legislation that replaced the ISA, for recruiting new members for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
This led to a four-year jail sentence in Tapah prison.
In December 2017, Yazid was re-arrested under Pota after the authorities found that he had been recruiting fellow inmates for al-Qaeda while in jail, Straits Times said.