The Jakarta Post, 3/31/2004 7:42:53 PM
U.S. hopes Hambali evidence will keep Ba'asyir jailed: Llawyer
JAKARTA (AFP): The United States is plotting to keep radical Muslim cleric Abu
Bakar Ba'asyir behind bars in Indonesia by sharing testimony from top terror suspect
Hambali, Ba'asyir's lawyer said Wednesday.
"Washington's decision to give Jakarta 125 transcripts from Hambali's interrogation
was an attempt to "engineer" a new case against Ba'asyir in Indonesia," Mohammad
Assegaf said.
A district court last September cleared the cleric of treason charges but U.S.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said earlier this month that Ba'asyir, 65,
was deeply involved in terrorism.
Foreign governments, especially the U.S. and Australia, accuse Ba'asyir of having led
the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah blamed for the Bali bombings of October 2002
which killed 202 people, and for a string of other deadly attacks.
"We have to anticipate possible attempts by the U.S. to engineer (such a plot)," said
Assegaf.
"We are worried that the documents will be used as a legal base to prosecute
Ba'asyir as a terrorist because he has never been put on trial as one," the lawyer
said.
By sharing the documents the United States "clearly shows that they are not willing
to see" Ba'asyir freed from prison, he added.
No immediate comment was available from U.S. embassy officials in Jakarta.
Hambali, a suspected senior figure in both Jemaah Islamiyah and Al-Qaeda itself, has
been in U.S. custody since his arrest last August in Thailand.
Ba'asyir is to be released from a Jakarta prison on April 30 after the supreme court
halved a three-year sentence for immigration offenses and document forgery. The
move prompted expressions of disappointment from Australia, Singapore and the U.S.
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