Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, the Indonesian who has been sentenced to death for the Bali bombings, appeared in public on Monday for the first time since his conviction and testified that he was involved in an earlier deadly attack.
Known to the world as Amrozi, he is the first person convicted for last October’s bombings. He was brought from the resort island to Jakarta to give evidence at the trial of a man accused of bombing the Philippine ambassador’s home in 2000.
A relaxed and smiling Amrozi gave two thumbs up at the end of his testimony — the same gesture he made when he received his death sentence from a Bali court on August 7. He is appealing the sentence.
Security at Central Jakarta District Court was tighter than usual, with an airport-style metal detector and hand-held detectors. About 30 police officers were stationed outside the courtroom and a similar number elsewhere around the court.
The Bali bombings of two crowded nightclubs last October killed 202 people, mostly Western vacationers. The al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group is blamed for the residence attack, the Bali blasts and a string of other bombings.
Amrozi was testifying in the trial of Abdul Jabar, who could also face a death sentence if convicted under a 1951 emergency law.
Prosecutors say the residence bombers wanted to avenge the death of fellow Muslims in the separatist conflict in the southern Philippines. The car bomb on August 1 2000 killed two people and injured 21 others, including ambassador Leonides T Caday.
Prosecutors have said Jabar conducted the bombing jointly with other suspects including Amrozi, Edi Setiono, Asep alias Darwin and Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi. Al-Ghozi escaped a Manila police cell on July 14 while serving a 12-year sentence for possessing a tonne of explosives.
Amrozi testified that al-Ghozi bombed the ambassador’s residence.
”Yeah, that’s right. Al-Ghozi told me when we were in Surabaya that he detonated that bomb,” Amrozi said. ”So I’m surprised that Abdul Jabar became the accused.”
Amrozi said he purchased a van and took it from East Java to Jakarta with another man, Mubarok. The van was loaded with 200km of explosive ingredients that were mixed en route.
In Jakarta he and Mubarok handed over the van to somebody else and then both men returned by bus to East Java.
Amrozi (41) was convicted in Bali of buying the chemicals and a van used in the bombings there and of transporting them to the resort island.
Also testifying at Jabar’s trial, Mubarok told a similar story about transporting the chemicals in the van. He said a fugitive
Bali suspect called Dulmatin and another man mixed the chemicals.
Police say they have linked the alleged terror chief Hambali, in United States custody since his arrest in Thailand last month, to the Bali attack and others throughout the region.
Mubarok said he knew Hambali from Malaysia and Afghanistan, and last met him at a Surabaya hotel with Amrozi and others perhaps in 1999.
Al-Ghozi, in a written deposition to Philippine police in June, admitted setting off the bomb at the Philippine ambassador’s home along with other Jemaah Islamiyah members led by Hambali. — Sapa-AFP