The Home Minister said in a statement that the Saudi citizen, better known as Hamza Kashgari, was arrested by the police at about 9.40am at KL International Airport (KLIA) yesterday at the request of Saudi authorities for reportedly insulting Islam and Prophet Muhammad.
The police are currently in contact with Saudi authorities to determine the next course of action, Hishammuddin added.
Reuters reported that the 23-year-old Kashgari had allegedly posted the offending comments on his Twitter feed on Saturday, also Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, drawing thousands of outraged comments and calls for his execution on Twitter and other social networking sites.
The exact nature of his comments cannot be verified as he later deleted them, but media reported that one of them reflected his contradictory views of the Prophet.
It is considered blasphemous to insult the Prophet. Blasphemy is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.
