JI bomb maker Al-Ghozi to be buried back in Indonesia
JI bomb maker Al-Ghozi to be buried back in Indonesia
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and I.D. Nugroho, The Jakarta Post,
Jakarta/Madiun, East Java
The Philippine government has approved the request to send the
corpse of terrorist suspect Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi back to
Indonesia for burial and promised to finance the process.
Spokesman for the Indonesian foreign ministry Marty Natalegawa
said on Tuesday Manila had fulfilled the request and would
immediately begin with the transfer process.
"They sent the remains to Manila today (on Tuesday) from
General Santos city and it will be flown to Jakarta," Marty told
The Jakarta Post.
It remains unclear when the body of al-Ghozi, who was
convicted last year for possession of bomb-making materials in
the Philippines, will arrive in Jakarta.
Al-Ghozi died in an apparent shootout between local security
officers in Cotabato province on Sunday, after a nationwide
manhunt was launched in July after he escaped from prison.
He was thought to be one of the main operatives of the Jamaah
Islamiyah, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist network in Southeast Asia
The Indonesian consulate officials had confirmed the
identification of the deceased and requested a funeral at home on
behalf of al-Ghozi's family.
Agence France-Presse reported that the Philippine President
Gloria Arroyo on Tuesday denied allegations that one of the
country's most wanted terror suspect was executed to create a
publicity coup ahead of a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush
to Manila later this month.
Opposition politicians have reacted with anger and skepticism
at Arroyo government's claim that the JI bombmaker al-Ghozi was
killed in a shootout. They suspect the Indonesian was killed to
prevent him from revealing police complicity in his embarrassing
escape from the national police headquarters jail last July.
The governor of the area where al-Ghozi was killed, Emmanuel
Pinol, said residents claimed to have heard no fighting despite
police accounts that he had engaged pursuers in a gunbattle.
"There were only two shots, heard. There was no firefight,"
Pinol said.
The Indonesian government has refrained itself from making any
comments on the incident, but focused more on the efforts to
bring al-Ghozi back home.
Al-Ghozi's mother Rukana, after seeing the picture of the
bombmaker in the newspapers confirmed the deceased was her son.
"Thank God it is him and he is dead," she said, with no trace
of sadness.
She expressed gratitude to all parties involved in sending her
son's body home. He will be buried in Mojorejo village in the
East Java town of Madiun, his home village.