The Jakarta Post, 7/16/2004 1:16:45 PM
Alleged Australian Jamaah Islamiyah leader found, questioned in
Indonesia
SYDNEY (AFP): A former Perth school teacher accused of heading the Australia
branch of the outlawed Islamic militant group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) has been found in
Indonesia and questioned by authorities there, Prime Minister John Howard said on
Friday.
Howard confirmed elements of a report Friday in The Australian newspaper that Abdul
Rahim Ayub was located about three months ago in Puncak, a town near the West
Java city of Bogor.
Ayub, who The Australian said was a dual Australian-Indonesian national, has not
been arrested but has been cooperating with Indonesia's national intelligence agency,
BIN, and remains under the watch of BIN agents, the newspaper said.
Howard confirmed that Ayub had been located and questioned by the Indonesians,
but declined to elaborate further.
"There has been a questioning of this man and investigations are being pursued and
at the moment we don't have anything more to say," he told a Melbourne radio
station.
Also asked about the report, Attorney General Philip Ruddock would only say that
Australia had no immediate plans to seek Ayub's extradition.
"All I can indicate is he is of interest to us andinvestigations are continuing," Ruddock
told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.
Ruddock would not elaborate on the newspaper's report but said it was necessary for
Ayub to be charged with offenses before any action could be considered against him.
"First of all you have to have offenses for which you have evidence and if we have
evidence of offenses against individuals then obviously you look at the range of
options which include extradition," he said.
JI, which has been linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, has been blamed
for a string of attacks including the Bali bombings which killed 202 people in October
2002 and the Marriott hotel car bombing which killed 12 in Jakarta last August.
The group has been outlawed as a terrorist organization in Australia, but is not
banned in Indonesia.
Ayub and his twin brother Adbul Rahman, were identified as the leaders of JI in
Australia by Jack Roche, a British-born convert to Islam who last month became the
first Australian convicted of terrorism offenses.
Roche, also of Perth, pleaded guilty to conspiring with JI members to set off a truck
bomb outside the Israeli embassy in Canberra.
Sources in Indonesia were quoted as saying that neither of the Ayub brothers had
been linked to any terrorist act in Indonesia and had not been of interest to the
country's counter-terrorism police.
Ayub reportedly denied being a member of JI to BIN, claiming the group, which is a
listed terrorist organization in Australia, was just an association of like-minded Islamic
ideologues.
But he provided "significant information" about the names and whereabouts of other
men linked by police to JI, The Australian said.
Abdul Rahman was deported to Indonesia in 1999 after having an application for
refugee status in Australia denied.
It was not immediately clear when Abdul Rahim Ayub left Australia but The Australian
said he had been sighted at a meeting of JI leaders in Java on Oct. 16, four days after
the Bali bombing, and had not returned to Australia since. (**)
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