Police to grill Iqbal over attacks

Police to grill Iqbal over attacks

Agencies, Jakarta

Indonesia hopes to clarify details surrounding the possible
deportation of a man from Malaysia, and question him over
possible top-level links to regional terror network Jamaah
Islamiyah (JI).

Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda said Tuesday that
the government was waiting for details regarding the deportation
of Mohammad Iqbal Abdul Rahman, alias Abu Jibril.

"... and Iqbal will be asked to clarify his possible
involvement with several militant groups here."

He said Indonesia wished to question Iqbal in relation to a
number of terror attacks carried out in Indonesia and his links
to militant organizations and JI.

Hassan dismissed earlier reports that Iqbal had been sent to
Jakarta.

"They (Malaysian authorities) have yet to decide when and
where the process will be conducted."

Iqbal was arrested under Malaysia's Internal Security Act in
June 2001 and is expected to be deported when the maximum
allowable detention period expires.

Though Iqbal was detained along with 90 other people on
suspicion of belonging to JI, he has never been charged with any
crime.

Both Iqbal and the alleged leader of JI, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir,
fled Indonesia for Malaysia together in 1985 to escape former
president Soeharto's repressive regime.

Ba'asyir is currently being tried in connection with plotting
to kill President Megawati Soekarnoputri when she was vice
president, and a series of bombings in Indonesia.

Iqbal is the brother of Irfan S. Awwas, a senior leader of the
Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI), which is chaired by Ba'asyir.

Separately, Iqbal's wife, Fatimah Zahrah Abdul Aziz, who still
lives in Malaysia, said she met her husband at the immigration
detention center in the capital Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

"He is in good health. We are appealing to the government not
to deport him," she told AFP.

"My husband said he is not involved in any militant activities
nor linked to Jamaah Islamiyah. My husband is just a simple
religious preacher," he said.

Fatimah, an Indonesian who like her husband holds permanent
resident status in Malaysia, said "no date has been fixed when
the government will deport him."

Malaysian terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, however, told AFP
on Tuesday that Iqbal was "a very significant figure" in JI.

"After Ba'asyir, he is the senior ideological leader in the
organization. He is a very important man, comparable to Hambali,
but he is ideological, less operational," he said.