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June 6, 2006

Indonesia: Bali Bombing Islamist To Be Freed

News from NineMSN and Radio Australia relates that Abu Bakar Bashir (pictured), the "spiritual leader" of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah will be freed from jail next week. His jail sentence was imposed for his giving "approval" to the bomb attacks upon Bali on October 12, 2002. These bombings killed 202 innocent people, mostly tourists, including 88 Australians.

The following are extracts from our Jemaah Islamiyah Special Report:

Abu Bakar Bashir is of Yemei descent. He was born in August,1938 on East Java, and his other name is Abdus Somad. He is thought to have joined Darul Islam in the 1970's. He was imprisoned then for Islamic activism. In 1985 he was ordered back to jail, but escaped to Malaysia, according to CFR Terrorism. In Malaysia, Bashir recruited people to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviets, and sought funding from Saudi Arabia. Sukarno's successor, Suharto, stepped down from power in 1998, and Bashir returned to run an Islamic seminary in Solo, on the predominantly Muslim island of Java. He also became the leader of the Indonesia Council of Holy Warriors or Majelis Mujahideen Indonesia.

The trial of those suspected of involvement in the first Balinese Bombings was a fraught affair. In April 2003, Abu Bakar Bashir was charged by Indonesian authorities with treason. He was accused of trying to overthrow the government to set up an Islamic state. He was accused of a series of church bombings from Christmas 2000, and of a plot to attack US and other Western interests in SIngapore. On 2 September he was acquitted of treason but found guilty of lesser charges and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. He announced his intention to appeal. On October 15, 2004 he was once again arrested and charged with involvement with the J. W. Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta, which kiled 14 people.

When accused of the hotel bombing, Bashir was also accused of conspiracy, relating to the Balinese atrocity of 2002. According to the BBC, "In his second trial, judges said that while he had not been involved in the Bali attacks, he had given his approval. He was sentenced to 30 months in jail for being part of an "evil conspiracy".

Bashir's original sentence of two and a half years' imprisonment, imposed on March 3, 2005 has already been automatically reduced. It is customary for Indonesia to reduce "well-behaved" prisoners' sentences on religious or national holidays. On August 17, Bashir's sentence was cut by four months and fifteen days in an Independence Day gesture, granted routinely for tens of thousands of Indonesian prisoners.

Bashir nearly had an automatic reduction for a second time at the start of November 2005, to coincide with another festival, that of Eid. The Australian government initially accepted the reduction as a fait accompli, but at the start of November, the Indonesian government announced that Bashir would not be getting any reduction.

Indonesia's Justice and Human Rights Minister Hamid Awaluddin announced the decision to set Bashir free. He aaid that the Islamist cleric will be free on "June 14".

Bashir's lawyer Mahendra, who also represents other terrorists from Jemaah Islamiyah, claims that his client intends to return to his familiar haunt of Solo on Java, 250 miles east of Jakarta, the capital. There he "can get medical attention and teach again at Ngruki," Mahendra said.

Ngruki is an Islamist boarding school or pesantren, which has a notoriety in the counter-terror community. It was founded by Abu Bakar Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar thirty years ago, and is also called the Al Mukmin school. Abdullah Sungkar went on to found Jemaah Islamiyah, and also fought in Afghanistan. He is now dead.

The International Crisis Group claims that more than 30 Islamist terrorists, currently convicted or indicted, have been alumni from the Ngruki college.

In January, the college held an "international open day", to prove to the world that it was free from the taint of extremism. Wahyuddin, its current director, said: "Whenever a terrorist incident occurs, the world always points at us. We are constantly accused of training terrorists, while achievements of the school and students never get the attention of the media, including the national media."

If Ngruki allows Bashir to return to the school and preach his poisonous philosophy, then the world is right to look at Ngruki as an academy of terror. Bashir should be prevented from polluting the minds of the young and impressionable. But Indonesia's current love affair with extreme Islamism has made it blind to the truth.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at June 6, 2006 11:00 AM

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