Indonesia on Saturday arrested the alleged leader of a militant Islamic group suspected in last week’s Bali nightclub bombings and blamed the attack on al-Qaida and its allies in Southeast Asia.
Defence Minister Matori Abdul Djalil stated in the most specific claim yet by Indonesian authorities that the cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, was linked to al-Qaida and that his right-hand man, known as Hambali, was behind many of the country’s terrorist bombings. Matori stopped short of accusing Bashir of organizing the Bali attacks, but said that it was logical to believe that Hambali, whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, helped orchestrate them and that Bashir knew about them.
The two men are accused of being leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah, believed to be al-Qaida’s biggest ally in Southeast Asia. Hambali is one of the region’s most-wanted figures. He is accused of arranging a meeting of two of the September 11 hijackers with other al-Qaida figures in Malaysia in January 2000 and of being behind an alleged plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy and other Western targets in Singapore.
”Al-Qaida and its internal network is behind this Bali bomb blast,” Matori told a news conference in Bali, a week after bombs tore through a nightclub district and killed at least 183 people and injured more than 300, mostly foreign tourists.
”A lot of information and the progress of our intelligence work confirm that Hambali is Abu Bakar Bashir’s vice chairman,” Matori said. ”Hambali is a terrorist from Indonesia. He’s always been mentioned by those who did bombings in the past as their commander.”
”It is illogical if Abu Bakar Bashir says that he doesn’t know about the bombings in Indonesia,” Matori said. Bashir (64) who has been hospitalised since Friday with breathing problems, is under police guard at the main hospital in his hometown of Solo on Indonesia’s main island of Java.
On Saturday afternoon, authorities dispatched a team of police doctors to Solo to see if Bashir is healthy enough to travel to Jakarta.
”The police don’t believe he is sick,” said National Police representative Gen. Saleh Saaf. ”He might be pretending.”
Bashir, who runs an Islamic school, has not been named as a suspect in the Bali attacks. His arrest Saturday stems from his alleged connection to a spate of church bombings two years ago in which 19 people died. He has denied involvement in those attacks as well as the Bali bombings, and says Jemaah Islamiyah does not exist.
The carnage in Bali triggered international demands that Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim nation – crack down on extremists and militants allegedly linked to al-Qaida. Warning of the threat of new attacks, Australia urged its citizens to leave Indonesia, saying areas in Jakarta could be hit.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri, slow to act against religious militancy in the past because of Islamic sensitivities, on Friday rammed through emergency measures by decree after months of legislative delay. It was made retroactive to cover those responsible for the Bali bombing.
”After what happened in Bali, Indonesia urgently needs a law to fight terrorism,” Justice Minister Yusril Mahendra said. The decree allows for suspects to be detained initially for three days. With a judge’s approval, that can be extended by another six months without charge. Those convicted of carrying out or threatening acts of terror will face penalties ranging from four years’ imprisonment to death.
The measures will be enforced by the police. Many human rights activists are leery of wider powers for the Indonesian military, which has a long record of brutal abuses. Human Rights Watch warned that the decree could lead to abuses due to the weak judiciary and rampant corruption. Police Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang said in Bali that investigators had so far questioned 67 people in connection with the nightclub blasts, but said there were no formal suspects.
Police are focusing the investigation, though, on eight people, seven Indonesians and one foreigner, national police representative Saaf told reporters.
More than 100 foreign investigators from Australia, the United States, France, Germany and Japan are working in Bali. They expect to reopen the blast site to the public Wednesday. The identification and repatriation of the victims – many of them burned beyond recognition – has been painfully slow for the family members trying to retrieve loved ones. Only 47 bodies have been positively identified. Australians top the lists of dead and injured, but the first body of an Australian victim – Angela Golotta, who would have turned 20 this past Thursday – arrived back home only on Saturday.
Her uncle had heckled Prime Minister John Howard during his visit to Bali to speed up the repatriation. Bashir is likely to be released from Muhammadiyah Hospital in two days, doctors said. Police officials told reporters that questioning would be postponed until then.
It was unclear what would happen to Bashir afterward, but options include confining him to Solo — between his home and the hospital — under police supervision, or taking him to a police hospital in Jakarta and holding him there. Several dozen riot policemen were posted at the hospital to prevent Bashir’s students from mounting street protests. Indonesia has been under international pressure to arrest Bashir for months. The government, fearing an Islamic extremist backlash, balked and said there was not enough evidence. Officials flipped their position on Friday after a team of Indonesian investigators returned from questioning Omar al-Faruq, an alleged al-Qaida operative in Southeast Asia who was arrested in Indonesia and turned over to the United States in June.
Al-Faruq fingered Bashir as ordering the church bombings, and implicated him in the activities of Jemaah Islamiyah. Bashir said he does not even know al-Faruq. – Sapa-AP