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November 16, 2006
Indonesia: Three Years' Jail For Sheltering Islamist
The Jakarta Post reports that a man has been sentenced to three years' jail for sheltering Noordin Mohammed Top, the notorious financier of terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (pictured).
Top is a fugitive, who had helped with the finance and logistics of the bombings on Bali of October 12, 2002, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australian tourists, and also the last Bali bombing on October 1, 2005, which killed 2 people. The Malaysian-born terror leader had been responsible for other bombings, such as the September 9, 2004, bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, which killed 11 people.
His last confirmed location was Binangu village near Wonosobo, Central Java, which was raided on April 29 this year. Two of his henchmen, Jabir and Abdul Hadi, were killed in the raid, but Top fled. His current location is unknown.
According to Dr Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group, Top relied upon Jabir and Abdul Hadi, and was dealt a blow by their loss. She claimed in a May report that Top had built up a substantive terror network in southeast Asia, involving members of Darul Islam (the group from which Jemaah Islamiyah was formed around 1995), and also graduates from the notorious Ngruki pesantren near Solo in Central Java.
Some analysts believe that Noordin Top has now split from Jemaah Ismaliyah and is now heading his own group.
The Ngruki school, also called the Al Mukmin pesantren was founded by Abu Bakar Bashir, spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah and Abdullah Sungkar, a co-founder of the terror group, more than 30 years ago. Sungkar, a former fighter against the Soviets in Afghanistan, died of natural causes in November 1999. About 30 known or suspected Islamic terrorists have attended the Ngruki pesantren, including Amrozi, who is currently awaiting imminent execution for his part in the 2002 Bali bombings. Amrozi said that the school was a "JI institution".
The man who was sentenced today, 25-year old Achmad Basyir Umar, is the latest of several people who have this year been sentenced to jail terms for providing assistance to Noordin Top.
The District Court court in Malang, East Java, was told that in July 2005 Umar met Top on several occasions, but did not report him to the police, in contravention of Indonesia's antiterrorism laws. Presiding Judge Sutoto Hadi disagreed with Umar's claims of innocence, and sentenced him to three years' jail.
Another leading Jemaah Islamiyah figure, Malaysian-born Azahari bin Husin, the "demolition man", who had meticulously planned the 2005 Bali bombings, was killed outside Malang on November 9 last year, shot through the heart by a police bullet. His accomplice blew himself up, in an attempt to destroy evidence, but a computer from the site revealed how intensely Azahari had planned the attack, even choosing the clothes the three suicide bombers would wear.
Achmad Basyir Umar told reporters that he would be appealing against his sentence.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 16, 2006 10:14 AM
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