Bangkok Post, Friday April 13, 2007 11:54
Hambali denies involvement in bombings
BangkokPost.com, Agencies
The Indonesian terrorist mastermind Hambali, known to many as "the Osama bin
Laden of Asia" before his capture in Ayutthaya in 2003, has told US interrogators he
had no links to the worldwide al-Qaeda organisation.
The first statement by Hambali to reach the public since his capture came during an
administrative hearing at the Guantanamo base in Cuba, where the US has
imprisoned what it calls the hard-core terrorists captured since 2001.
Hambali was chief of operations of Jemaah Islamiyah. But under questioning at the
US hearing he denied any involvement in terrorism either in Indonesia or anywhere
else.
He said he was not involved in bomb attacks on Indonesian churches in 2000 that
killed 18 people and a plot to attack the British, US and Australian embassies in
Singapore.
Hambali agreed to appear at the US military hearings - he had a choice - and was
sworn in.
Asked about the 2000 church bombings: "I was not involved."
He said he did not even discuss plans to blow up embassies in Singapore. "No. I had
nothing - nothing to do with it." And then later he added in reply to a follow-up
question, "I don't know anything about it whatsoever."
Hambali said he resigned from JI in 2000, but refused to answer a question about
what he did for the group before that time.
The court asked: "Mister Hambali, did you have any association with al-Qaeda while
you were a member of JI?"
He replied: "No."
Hambali, whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, has been described by his US
captors as the operations chief and "main contact and point man for al-Qaeda in
Southeast Asia."
He is among 14 terrorist suspects transferred to Guantanamo in September after
being held by the Central Intelligence Agency. Jemaah Islamiyah is blamed by the
Indonesian and Australian governments for the October 2002 bombings on the
Indonesian island of Bali that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
The US is conducting hearings to establish whether the prisoners are "enemy
combatants" and should continue to be held.
The hearings, known as combatant status review tribunals, are held in private and the
transcripts are edited to remove information that may be dangerous to national
security, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said last month.
Hambali appeared before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at Guantanamo Bay on
April 4, as one of 14 "high value" detainees transferred to the base last September
after being held at secret locations.
The public and reporters are not permitted access to the hearings.
A US government transcript of the unclassified portion of Hambali's hearing was
released by the Pentagon on Friday morning, Thailand time.
The Americans have not directly alleged that Hambali planned the 2002 Bali
bombings. The US says a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant heard him
discussing plans in January that year to bomb bars, cafes or night clubs frequented
by westerners in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia,
according to a summary of the evidence.
Hambali discussed a plan with the same informant to attack the Singapore train
network and put him in touch with a "high ranking" al-Qaeda member in Pakistan in
May 1999 so he could take the proposal to Afghanistan, where the Taliban regime
was sheltering Osama bin Laden, according to the transcript.
The US alleges he "supervised the plan" to bomb embassies in Singapore and
"orchestrated and funded" the Dec. 24, 2000, church bombings.
© Copyright The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2006
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