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.