'Sabili' names Ba'asyir Man of the Year

'Sabili' names Ba'asyir Man of the Year

JAKARTA: Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the alleged spiritual leader of the regional militant Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) group, has been named Man of the Year by an Islamic magazine.

Ba'asyir's "charisma and "stance against the United States" were the main reasons why Sabili magazine honored him in its December edition, its editor Yogi Utomo said on Friday.

The 64-year-old cleric who runs an Islamic boarding school in Surakarta, Central Java, is currently in police detention in Jakarta over a string of church bombings in 2000 that killed 19 people.

Intelligence officials in Southeast Asia allege that Ba'asyir heads JI, the al-Qaeda linked terror group implicated in the Bali bombings that killed 192 people, mostly foreign tourists.

They have not, however, directly linked Ba'asyir to the Bali bombings. He has denied any wrongdoing, and claims that JI does not even exist.

Sabili typically features fiery articles on the alleged injustices perpetrated by western governments on Muslims worldwide, on efforts to impose Islamic law in Indonesia and advice columns for young Muslims.

The magazine -- meaning My Path - sells up to 85,000 copies a month and is distributed all over Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Utomo said Ba'asyir's campaign for the imposition of Islamic law was another reason he was honored. "So far we have not had any complaints from our readers," said Utomo about Ba'asyir's selection. --AP