Mega appeals for women's release

Mega appeals for women's release

Ian Timberlake, Agence France-Presse/Jakarta

President Megawati Soekarnoputri appealed on Saturday for the release of two Indonesian women held hostage in Iraq as their captors demanded Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir be freed in return.

"They went to Iraq to make a living and support their families," Megawati said in a statement broadcast on the Al- Jazeera satellite television channel.

"There is no political reason or reason whatsoever to take them hostage."

Megawati, wearing a head scarf, referred in her appeal to the approaching fasting month of Ramadhan and asked the two women, Rosidah binti Anom and Rafikan binti Amin, be freed immediately.

"I sincerely ask in my own name, in the name of the state, in the name of the Indonesian government, that they be immediately freed from the hands of the hostage-takers so they can go home again to their families," she said.

Her plea came shortly before a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq, which said it seized the women, asked Jakarta to release Ba'ashir, the cleric police say leads the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) extremist group.

Saying Ba'ashir had been arrested to "please the Australian government", he militants made their demand in a video also broadcast by Al-Jazeera.

But Ba'ashir's lawyer, Mahendradatta, told Elshinta radio in Jakarta an angry Ba'ashir rejected the demand for his release and instead asked the women be freed unconditionally.

"Because he rejects being freed by means outside the law," the lawyer said.

Mahendradatta said Ba'ashir considered it forbidden by Islam to take innocent women hostage. He said the kidnapping was perhaps "engineered by foreigners... to provoke Indonesia into supporting the invasion of Iraq".

A team from the foreign ministry was in West Java on Saturday evening but had not yet been able to locate relatives of the women.

"We will be sending more people early tomorrow morning," ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa told AFP.