Bali bomber says he had no links with cleric Ba'asyir
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Ali Imron, who is serving a life sentence for the 2002 Bali bombings, testified in the trial of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir on Thursday that the cleric had not influenced his actions in carrying out the attack.
His testimony posed another setback for prosecutors in trying to link Ba'asyir, 66, with the Bali bombings and the 2003 bombing of JW Marriott Hotel, which were both blamed on Jamaah Islamiyah.
Ali had previously refused to testify until the judge explained the importance of the Ba'asyir case. Another convicted Bali bomber, Hutomo Pamungkas alias Mubarok, failed to testify in Thursday's court session due to health reasons.
Ali said that Ba'asyir, charged by the prosecution for inciting his followers to bomb two nightclubs in Bali and the Marriott hotel, had not provided any facilities, financial support or any religious advice for him before the Bali attack.
He said he had not met Ba'asyir before the bombings.
"I saw Ba'asyir once, when I was staying at the home of my brother, Mukhlas, in Johor, Malaysia," Ali said, recalling the days before he went to Pakistan and Afghanistan to study Islam and learn the art of war.
"As far as I knew, Abdullah Sungkar was the leader of Jamaah Islamiyah. Then I found out from the media that Ba'asyir was the amir (leader) of the organization."
Ali acknowledged that he first met Ba'asyir when the 66-year- old taught at the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school (pesantren) in Ngruki, Surakarta, Central Java.
Ba'asyir confirmed Ali's testimony, saying that he knew Ali when he was in fourth grade at Ngruki.
Before adjourning the trial, the panel of judges instructed the prosecutors to present Mubarok to testify in the next session scheduled for Jan. 27.
"We believe that the presence of this witness in court is important," presiding judge Soedarto said.
He argued that during the previous hearings, witnesses had linked Mubarok with Ba'asyir in relation to the cleric's alleged role in JI.
Meanwhile, Ba'asyir's defense lawyers asked the judges to also summon former president Megawati Soekarnoputri to testify at the trial.
Muhammad Assegaf, chief lawyer for Baasyir, said Megawati should appear in court because her name had been mentioned by witness Frederic L. Bucks, a former translator for U.S. President George W. Bush.
Bucks had told the court that Bush once asked Megawati to secretly arrest Ba'asyir and hand him over to the U.S. authorities for prosecution.
The judges however rejected the lawyers' request, saying they did not believe that Megawati's testimony would be pivotal in Ba'asyir case.
A.P. Batubara, a Megawati aide, told Antara that the former president would not be willing to testify in the Ba'asyir trial. Batubara did not say why.
He said Megawati rejected the appeal of the Bush administration to hand over the Muslim cleric to the United States in order to protect the right of a citizen to face trial in Indonesia under the country's law.
The Ministry of Agriculture's auditorium, which housed Thursday's trial, was not as crowded as the previous sessions as many of Ba'asyir's supporters from the Indonesian Mujahiddin Council (MMI) did not show up on the eve of Idul Adha (Islamic Day of Sacrifice).