Ba'asyir nearly fit for interogation, vows to rasist detention
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.