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14 September 2012| last updated at 01:30AM

Stolen jet engines back in air force base

By ADRIAN DAVID

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KUALA LUMPUR: The two Royal Malaysian Air Force’s F5-E jet engines, which were stolen nearly five years ago, have been brought back from Uruguay.

Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail said the engines were shipped back recently and were part of evidence in the ongoing trial of two men charged with the theft.

The New Straits Times was made to understand that the General Electric J85-21A turbojet engines — the powerplants for the F-5E Tiger II fighter and RF-5E Tigereye reconnaissance jets — were recovered in full from Latin America and were now being stored at the RMAF base in Subang.

Prior to the trial, Gani had vowed to trace the whereabouts and bring back the engines, which were found stolen in May last year. RMAF had lodged a police report on Aug 4 last year.

Investigations revealed that the engines had been transported out of the RMAF base in Butterworth to the Kuala Lumpur RMAF Material Processing Shed, Matra 1 in Sungai Besi in December 2007.

They were sent to Sungai Besi by the same private defence contractor handling its maintenance. They were stolen a short while later.

The engines were only found to be stolen when RMAF officers wanted to service them.

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