LAKSAMANA.Net, April 16, 2004 08:52 PM
Baasyir Declared Terror Suspect
Laksamana.Net - Police have declared radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Baasyir a
terrorism suspect and are focusing their investigation on possible links to the Bali
bombings and his alleged leadership role in regional terror organization Jemaah
Islamiyah.
The decision will enable authorities to keep Baasyir (65) in jail when his current
18-month sentence for immigration violations and forging document expires on April
30.
"The Jakarta Prosecutor's Office has received a notification letter [from police] of their
investigation into the suspect Abu Bakar Baasyir," Attorney General's Office
spokesman Kemas Yahya Rachman was quoted as saying Friday (16/4/04) by
Reuters.
"Investigators have conducted a probe into the suspect, who is believed to have
carried out terrorist action," he added.
National Police General Dai Bachtiar confirmed Baasyir had been declared a suspect,
but declined to say which law the cleric was suspected of violating. "As to what his
role is, it's still being investigated. We don't know exactly what was his role," he was
quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.
Bachtiar did say the investigation had "links with testimonies from witnesses from
Malaysia and Singapore”.
Mohamed Nasir Abbas, a Malaysian member of Jemaah Islamiyah currently being
detained in Jakarta, has said he took orders from Baasyir.
In an interview broadcast earlier this month by Malaysian television network TV3,
Abbas said Baasyir and Jemaah Islamiyah's alleged former operations chief Hambali
had once distributed a religious edict from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden calling
on Muslims to kill Americans.
He did not directly link Baasyir to any of the terror attacks that have been blamed on
Jemaah Islamiyah, including the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202
people and the August 2003 JW Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta that killed 12.
The Associated Press on Friday quoted an unnamed Indonesian intelligence official
as saying a letter found last year, signed by Abbas, referred to Baasyir as the leader
of Jemaah Islamiyah. He said the letter could be used as evidence for new charges
against the cleric.
Meanwhile, chief of the National Police's Criminal Investigation Department, Suyitno
Landung, said investigators were focusing on Baasyir's "leadership” of a secretive
group blamed for the Bali and Marriott attacks.
He stopped short of mentioning Jemaah Islamiyah by name. "That organization is
closed, secretive, and its documents will be evidence to indicate Abu Bakar Baasyir
is its leader. We will interrogate him soon," he was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Police have also been studying transcripts of US interviews with Hambali, who was
arrested last August in Thailand and is now reportedly being detained by American
authorities on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.
Baasyir has long denied any involvement in Jemaah Islamiyah or al Qaeda, although
he has praised bin Laden as a "true Muslim fighter”.
He has strongly denied the allegations made against him by Abbas, claiming the
Malaysian was tortured and forced to incriminate him as part of a US-led conspiracy
to have his detention extended.
Baasyir was arrested on October 19, 2002, in the aftermath of the Bali bombings,
although authorities were unable to produce any hard evidence linking him to the
attacks.
In September 2003 Central Jakarta District Court sentenced him to four years in
prison for treason, immigration violations and forging documents. But the court said he
was not guilty of leading Jemaah Islamiyah or masterminding a plot to use religious
violence to overthrow the government.
In December 2003, Jakarta High Court announced it had overturned the cleric's
treason conviction and reduced his jail sentence to three years. The Supreme Court
last month further reduced the sentence to one and a half years.
The move to declare Baasyir a suspect will no doubt please the US and Australian
governments, which had strongly protested the sentence reductions and urged
Indonesia to reopen investigations into the cleric.
Under Indonesia's anti-terror legislation, enacted after the Bali bombings, authorities
can request permission from a magistrate to keep a suspect in prison for six months
pending an investigation.
'Foreign Meddling'
Baasyir's lawyers responded to the new investigation into their client by accusing
police of acting at the behest of foreign intervention.
"All of these accusations aren't new...The police are just making up things," lawyer
Achmad Michdan was quoted as saying by Reuters.
"This is clearly an order from foreigners who have been haunting the police. Why can't
they wait until he is released? What, him fleeing? He's a really old man, where can he
go?" he added.
Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said the US "intervention” in
the case against Baasyir was tantamount to a breech of Indonesia's sovereignty.
"It is only natural to consider and interpret the US steps as an intervention in our
domestic development," he was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara.
He said the US had politicized legal procedures in Indonesia and such steps were
counterproductive. "Such intervention gives the impression that we took actions based
on another countries' interests and that we had to bow to their demands," he said.
"But we have no plans to summon US Ambassador Ralph L. Boyce to clarify the US
maneuvers," he added.
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