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.