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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