Ba'asyir refuses temporary release

P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir refused on Monday to allow his team of lawyers to file a temporary release motion on humanitarian grounds because this would mean begging for leniency from the United States.

"Ustadz asked us to cancel our plan, saying that his detention was due partially to U.S. intervention," said M. Luthfie Hakim after visiting Ba'asyir at the National Police Headquarters on Monday.

Luthfie said that according to Article 31 of the Criminal Code Procedures, a lawyer cannot submit such a request without permission from the client or his family.

He added that the team had planned to make the request to have Ba'asyir released because, he said, it was inhumane of the police not to give the cleric a chance to experience even a brief period of freedom before rearresting him shortly after he finished serving an 18-month prison term for immigration violations and document forgery on April 30.

However, Ba'asyir objected to being released temporarily and the team resolved to returning to their initial strategy of giving the police one week to release the cleric from detention.

"We demand the National Police chief release Abu Bakar Ba'asyir unconditionally, as also requested by Islamic leaders throughout the country and politicians within the legislature," said Luthfie.

The lawyers said that if the police exceeded the one-week period, they would file a pretrial motion against the National Police on the basis of Article 79 of the Criminal Law Procedures Code.

The article states that a suspect, or his family, or his lawyer can file a motion with the district court to review the validity of an arrest or detention, stating the reasons for the review.

" The police don't have sufficient initial evidence to arrest Ustadz Ba'asyir on terrorism charges. They will have to show us (the evidence) to prove it," said Luthfie.

The lawyers claimed that they had already cross-checked with district courts throughout the city and discovered that the police had not yet verified their intelligence-based evidence with the courts.

"I already checked with the South Jakarta District Court. They said the police had not yet made any verification on such intelligence-based evidence used to arrest the cleric," said A. Wirawan Adnan, a member of Ba'asyir's team of lawyers.

Director VI of the Antiterror and Bomb Division at the National Police Headquarters Brig. Gen. Pranowo previously said that the police were ready to face any pretrial motion made by Ba'asyir's lawyers.

In response to the request to show initial evidence used to charge the cleric, Pranowo said that they would present the evidence during the trial.

The lawyers have been planning the pretrial motion for a week. They previously stated their plan last week upon procedural violations in connection with their client's arrest.

Head of Ba'asyir team of lawyers Mohammad Assegaff said the police had not served the arrest warrant on their client until he had been taken into custody and placed in a police van.