Pakistan to deport RI students
Pakistan to deport RI students
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Pakistan will shortly deport the brother of terror suspect
Hambali and 18 other Malaysian and Indonesians who were arrested
last month on suspicion of having links with the Jamaah Islamiyah
(JI), a senior interior ministry official said Friday.
"The decision has been taken to deport them and the process
will start in the next couple of days," head of the interior
ministry's crisis management cell, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema,
told AFP.
Indonesian and Malaysian authorities have no objections to
their deportation, he said.
"None of them would be prosecuted here," Cheema added.
Pakistan is holding 13 Malaysian and six Indonesian students
arrested during separate raids on religious seminaries in the
port city of Karachi last month.
Hambali's younger brother, Rusman Gunawan alias Gun-gun, was
among the Indonesians arrested from the Abu Bakar seminary in
Karachi.
"He too will be deported, but presently he is in our custody,"
Cheema said.
A four-member Indonesian team visited Pakistan last month to
seek information about the students and also to interrogate
Gunawan.
The team also held negotiations with senior interior ministry
officials.
However, so far neither the government of Pakistan nor the
Indonesian or Malasyian governments have disclosed the nature of
the detainees' alleged terrorist plans or targets.
"The matter is too sensitive and has been shared at
government-to-government level," an intelligence official here
said, on condition of anonymity.
The suspects will be deported from Karachi in phases, he said.
"Gunawan still insists he is not part of Jamaah Islamiyah, but
supports his brother's cause," the official said.
In Jakarta, the Indonesian government regretted the
Philippine's supposition that suspected terrorist Taufik Rifki is
Indonesian, despite the fact that his nationality has not yet
been established.
Spokesman of the ministry of foreign affairs Marty Natalegawa
said that the statement may have tarnished the image of the
world's most populous Muslim country.
He said that until now the Philippines had found no solid
proof of Taufik's citizenship.
Referring to the statement, Marty said, "We have no proof of
identification that he is an Indonesian citizen. The suggestion
(that Taufik is an Indonesian) is based on his confession alone.
"We should be more careful with statements that we cannot
verify as they could create misperceptions about Indonesia," he
added.
Indonesia has delayed providing consular assistance to the
suspect. But Marty said a letter had been sent to the Philippine
foreign affairs ministry and ministry of defense asking for the
opportunity to question Taufik directly.
"We do not want to be involved in the ongoing legal process
against Taufik if there is not legal certainty on his
citizenship," he said.
Taufik, who was arrested on Oct. 2, has been declared the
second in command of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network
in the Southern Philippines.
The Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said on
Friday that JI was a national threat as the recent arrest of
Taufik had revealed that the group's plans were "both deadly and
far-ranging" and could threaten the stability of the region.
The Philippine police said Taufik had confessed under
interrogation that he was JI's "finance and liaison officer"
responsible for funding deadly bombings in the south.
His arrest led government forces to an alleged JI hideout,
where they recovered bomb-making equipment and radical Islamic
literature.
The Philippine police also said that the arrested man is
closely related to the late Fathurrahman Al-Ghozi, an Indonesian
who was sentenced to 17-years imprisonment in Manila but was
killed in a shoot-out after escaping from prison.
Marty said there that many Indonesians left the country for
years only to lose their citizenship, as they never registered
themselves with the Indonesian embassy.
"We also hear that Taufik is speaking with a Malay accent, so
there are many possibilities regarding his citizenship," Marty
said.