JI members behind Bali bombing: Witness

JI members behind Bali bombing: Witness

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali

A Malaysian national made an incriminating testimony on Wednesday
that pointed to the role of defendant Ali Gufron and other
suspects in the Bali bombings in October last year.

The witness, Muhammad Nasir bin Abbas, told the Denpasar
District Court that five days after the attacks Mukhlas told him
the bombings were the work of him and his younger brothers.

"It (the bombings) was all my and my younger brothers' work,"
Nasir quoted the defendant as saying.

The 37-year-old witness also said Mukhlas was the chief of
Mantiqi (region) I, overseeing West Malaysia and Singapore, in
the hierarchy of Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network.

This information was later substantiated by another witness,
Mustofa, former chief of Mantiqi III.

Nasir said Mukhlas had admitted his role in the Bali bombings
when they met each other at the JI six-monthly executive meeting
in Tawangmangu, near Surakarta in Central Java. The meeting was
attended by all four of the Mantiqi chiefs of the terrorist
network.

Nasir admitted he was the chief of Mantiqi III overseeing
Sabah, East Kalimantan, Central and Southeast Sulawesi and South
Philippines. He was apprehended in Cileungsi, near Bogor in West
Java, on April 3 by the Indonesian police.

The witness is Mukhlas' brother-in-law. During his stay in
Malaysia, Mukhlas married Nasir's younger sister.

"I sympathized with his (Mukhlas') predicament, being on the
run and hunted by the police, so I offered him accommodation at
my house in Palu," Nasir told the court. Palu is the capital of
Central Sulawesi.

Although confessing that the Bali bombings involved individual
JI members, Nasir asserted that as an organization JI had never
planned to launch a terror attack. He said JI was established to
propagate Islamic teachings, improve the organization's economic
capability and promote jihad.

"But the implementation of jihad in JI was quite different
from what happened in Bali. The bombing was not on the JI's
program. However, it is true that JI members carried out the
bombing," Nasir said.

Those perpetrators, according to Nasir, were Imam Samudra,
Abdul Matin, Ali Imron, Ali Gufron, Abdul Ghoni and Umar. All of
them fought in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation.

Another incriminating testimony was presented by Idris alias
Jhoni Hendrawan, who said that the money, which was later used to
buy two motorbikes, the L-300 minivan and to rent rooms at four
separate places, came from Mukhlas.

"The defendant also briefed and gave advice to the two would-
be suicide bombers, Iqbal and Jimmy, prior to the bombings.
During the briefing, the defendant told Iqbal to wear the
explosive vest and go to the Paddy's Pub, while Jimmy should stay
inside the minivan," Idris said.

The last witness, Sarjio alias Syawad, who allegedly mixed the
explosive compounds later used in the bombings, expressed his
doubt over the destructive power of his bomb.

"It does not make any sense (that it could produce such a
devastating and powerful explosion). I used a similar mixture for
the bomb in the Philippines Embassy in Jakarta but it did not
cause such tremendous devastation," he said.

For the embassy operation, Sarjio used a mixture of potassium
chlorate, sulfur and aluminum powder, weighing around 300
kilograms. He doubled the amount of the mixture for the Bali bomb
attacks.

"Logically, the effect would be twice the explosion of that at
the embassy," he said.

Presiding judge, Tjokorda Suamba, adjourned the trial until
July 31, when another Malaysian national, Wan Min bin Wan Mat,
allegedly the JI treasurer, is expected to give a teleconference
testimony.