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The Jakarta Post


The Jakarta Post, 4/20/2004 5:44:26 PM

Indonesia's top Islamic council says moves against Ba'asyir are unjust

JAKARTA (AFP): Efforts to keep militant Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir in jail as a terrorism suspect are "an act of injustice," Indonesia's main Islamic authority said on Tuesday.

The Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) "extends its sympathy" to Ba'asyir after police reopened an investigation into him, said council secretary general Din Syamsuddin.

Syamsuddin and his colleagues earlier held talks with Ba'asyir's lawyers, who have been seeking support from Muslim politicians and clerics.

"We see there is an act of injustice against ustadz (teacher) Abu Bakar Ba'asyir in relation to plans to take him back to court on charges of having ties with terrorism acts in Indonesia," Syamsuddin told reporters.

Legal authorities announced last Friday that Ba'asyir had been formally named a terrorism suspect, putting his scheduled release from prison on April 30 in doubt.

Ba'asyir was due to be freed after serving a sentence for immigration offenses. An appeal court had earlier overturned his conviction for involvement with the al-Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group.

Police say they have new evidence.

The United States and other foreign governments say the elderly cleric led JI -- the group blamed for the Bali nightclub bombings of October 2002, in which 202 people died, and for a string of other deadly attacks.

Syamsuddin said the United States was not allowing Indonesian police directly to question a terror suspect called Hambali. But at the same time, he said, police plan to question Bashir by using U.S. transcripts of Hambali's interrogation.

He called this "mind-boggling."

Hambali -- a suspected senior figure in both JI and Al-Qaeda -- has been in the U.S. custody since his arrest last August in Thailand.

In an article in Tuesday's Republika newspaper, Bashir accused the US trying to frame him, especially for the Bali bombings.

"In reality, I, along with Muslim clerics and the public in Solo (Ba'asyir's home base in Central Java), am among several people who disagreed with the Bali bombings," the 65-year-old cleric said.

Ba'asyir's lawyers have accused the government of bowing to pressure from the United States and Australia.

The U.S. Ambassador in Jakarta, Ralph L. Boyce, denied on Monday that he had undertaken secret missions to intervene with Ba'asyir case.

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