Ba'asyir nearly fit for interogation, vows to rasist detention
Team, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The police plan to detain and interrogate terrorist suspect Abu Bakar Ba'asyir as soon as he is declared fit, after a nearly two- week hospital stay apparently for respiratory problems.
Surakarta Police Chief Sr. Comr. Hasyim Irianto said on Sunday that the inquiry team from the National Police in Jakarta had arrived in the town and were awaiting instructions from their superiors to conduct the investigation.
"The inquiry team led by Adj. Sr. Comr. Jelby Ramadhan has arrived here but they are waiting for instructions from Jakarta to carry out the inquiry," he said after a meeting with local Muslim clerics at his office.
Irianto was reluctant to confirm the possibility of Ba'asyir's interrogation on Monday since the police were also waiting for a recommendation from his medical team at Muhammadiyah Hospital in Surakarta in Central Java declaring him fit for the police investigation.
During the meeting with the clerics, Irianto asked them to control Ba'asyir's supporters so the inquiry team could do their job. Also attending the meeting were clerics opposing the police investigation of Ba'asyir.
Recovering after nine days of medical treatment for respiratory problems, which came about just hours before he was to be in Jakarta for questioning on Oct. 19, the 64-year-old Muslim militant said on Sunday he would resist any attempt by the police to detain him after the questioning.
"I will refuse, with whatever powers I have. If I am locked up, it will be the nation's problem," Ba'asyir warned from his hospital bed.
Ba'asyir, no longer connected to an I.V. drip, looked fresh when he spoke to some 60 local and foreign journalists in small groups at the hospital. He spoke without any of his lawyers present.
Ba'asyir's medical team said that he was recovering and he was expected to leave the hospital soon.
The situation in the Central Java town has been tense as many Muslims, especially Ba'asyir's supporters, rallied over the weekend to oppose his status as terror suspect, which they said was declared at the behest of foreigners.
Dozens of the cleric's followers and members of a radical Muslim militia have been milling ominously around the hospital since he checked himself in on Oct. 18.
He has denied all links to terrorism, but has been named by Singapore, Malaysia, the United States and others as the spiritual head of JI, which was last week included by the UN on a list of al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups.
Thousands also partook in an interfaith gathering in Surakarta over the weekend with a joint call for peace in the town.
Leaders of the nation's largest Muslim organization, Nadhlatul Ulama, called on their followers to join hands to protect the minority groups in the town should violence erupt, because "violence was against Islam".
In Purwokerto, Central Java, former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid called on the government to get tough with Ba'asyir, whom he accused of being a terrorist.
"The government is going way to slow in fighting against terrorism here. Abu Bakar Ba'asyir truly is a terrorist, and that is also proven by intelligence reports from the United States and Malaysia," he told thousands of NU supporters.