LAKSAMANA.Net, April 26, 2005 11:12 PM
Mujahidin Challenges Police Claims
Laksamana.Net - The Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI) has slammed the Central
Java police for what it claims are erroneous and slanderous allegations that it secretly
conducted paramilitary training exercises in Salatiga.
Police intelligence reportedly alerted the Salatiga police to the paramilitary training
exercises four days ago. Chief of the provincial capital's police force, Commissioner
Suhartono, later told the media that the MMI was responsible.
MMI spokesman Irfan S. Awwas vehemently denied the claims and said the police
had slandered his organization in an attempt to turn the public against the MMI,
reported the Koran Tempo daily on Tuesday (26/04/04).
Jarot Supriyanto, head of the MMI's ‘laskar force' that is the ‘strike' or operational
wing of the organization, claimed that the MMI had never conducted paramilitary
training.
MMI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was recently sentenced to four years in
prison for his alleged role in the Bali and JW Marriott Hotel bombings of 2002 and
2003 that claimed over 220 lives.
Central Java provincial police chief Senior Insp. Gen. Chaerul Rasyid sought to calm
the brewing storm by announcing that the paramilitary group of around 24 persons had
disbanded and that the police would conduct a thorough investigation, reported The
Jakarta Post.
MMI information officer Fauzan Ansori told Tempo online edition on Tuesday that "the
Central Java police are paranoid about the MMI" and that their claims represented
"vilification and a systematic attempt to corner the MMI."
The training, which lasted several weeks according to early reports, was conducted in
a forested area near the city of Salatiga. Police claimed the paramilitary group had
distressed and disturbed local residents but the Kompas daily found otherwise.
"As leader of this community I have never seen or heard of any paramilitary
exercises," said Widodo, head of the Dusun Genikan community near the alleged site
of the training exercises.
The Kompas reporter discovered that the modernist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS)
had conducted basic training for middle-ranking party cadres from Friday until Sunday
(24/04) and confirmed the report with the PKS's Salatiga recruitment officer.
The PKS has risen from relative obscurity five years ago to become the country's
up-and-coming modernist Islamic party – largely owing to its image as a
corruption-free party and its enthusiastic and youthful powerbase. Former PKS
chairman Hidayat Nurwahid is current Speaker of the country's highest legislative
body, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), and the party almost trebled its
vote in the 2004 national election to win more than 8.3 million votes (7.34%) or 45
seats in the House of Representatives.
The MMI, meanwhile, has been accused of links to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaidar
network and is a shadowy organization that MMI spokesman Awwas has claimed has
no fixed membership or branch network.
MMI information officer Fauzan Ansori met journalists at the offices of the Legal Aid
Institute Foundation on Tuesday afternoon and said the MMI had also received reports
of the PKS training exercises.
He said the MMI would take legal action against the Central Java police if the
leadership agrees that the police have blackened the organization's name.
Of greater concern is the fact that the defamatory remarks could also have a serious
impact on the ongoing terrorism trials of the organization's leader Ustadz Abu Bakar
Ba'asyir, he added.
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