The Jakarta Post, 6/6/2006 10:28:30 AM
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir to be released from prison next week
JAKARTA (AP): An Indonesian militant cleric imprisoned in connection with the 2002
Bali bombings will return home after his release next week so that he can resume his
teachings at the infamous Ngruki school, his lawyer said.
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the alleged spiritual leader of the al-Qaeda-linked militant group
Jamaah Islamiyah, helped found the boarding school in Central Java province more
than three decades ago. Many of Indonesia's convicted terrorists attended theschool.
Ba'asyir, who has denied any involvement in militant acts, will be freed on June 14
after completing 26 months of his 30-month sentence for conspiracy in the Bali
nightclub blasts that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists,
governmentofficials said Monday.
Several months were cut from his sentence for good behavior. Bashir plans to return
to Solo, a town 400 kilometers east of the capital Jakarta, so he "can get medical
attention and teach again at Ngruki," his lawyer, Mahendradata, told The Associated
Press.
Mahendradata said he hoped the government would not bow to foreign pressure by
finding another reason to keep the 68-year-old cleric behind bars.
Ba'asyir's assistant, Hasyim, accused the U.S. and Australian governments of
meddling in Ba'asyir's jailing. "It is clear that a so-called superpower is behind the
cleric's imprisonment," he said Tuesday.
Australia, which lost 88 citizens in the Bali blasts, has said repeatedly in the past
that the original sentence was too short, and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld will be meeting with Indonesia's president and top security chiefs later
Tuesday.
It was not clear if Bashir would be on the agenda.
Jamaah Islamiyah is accused of carrying out the 2002 Bali bombings, attacks in the
Indonesian capital in 2003 and 2004 that together killed 21 people, and a triple suicide
bombing on Bali last October that killed 20. (***)
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