U.S. shares files on Hambali with RI

P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The U.S. has handed over 125 files on its investigation of Indonesian-born terrorist suspect Riduan Isamuddin alias Hambali to the government, an official says.

"The files were handed to the police several weeks ago," Dino Patti Djalal, director on North and Central America with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Wednesday.

Hambali, a suspected senior leader of both the al-Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network and al-Qaeda itself, has been under U.S. custody since his arrest last August in Thailand.

The U.S. has turned down Indonesia's request for direct access to Hambali, who was born in Cianjur, West Java, arguing that he was still needed for further investigation.

Dino, however, did not reveal the contents of the files, nor say whether they might be used to open a new case against militant cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, whose three-year prison sentence for immigration offenses and document forgery was reduced from three years to 18 months by the Supreme Court this month.

During his visit to Jakarta last week, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said his country had observed the deep and intense involvement of Ba'asyir in both planning and executing terrorist activities.

Foreign governments had accused Ba'asyir of leading JI, which has been blamed for the Bali bombings in October 2002 and a string of other deadly attacks since 2000.

A security ministry official has said the cleric may be tried again if new evidence emerges linking him to terror attacks.

Meanwhile, head of the Data and Information Department of the Indonesian Mujahiddin Council (MMI) Fauzan al-Anshari called on the police on Wednesday not to investigate the files on Ba'asyir, "whose prison term will end on April 4.

"We don't want the trauma of Abu Bakar's forced detention by police on Oct. 28, 2002 to be repeated. We are worried that police will arrest Abu once he is released over unverified information from overseas intelligence," Fauzan said.

Fauzan said he met with Ba'asyir on Tuesday to convey the news to him. Ba'asyir, according to Fauzan, was ready to be confronted by Hambali.

During the conversation, according to Fauzan, the cleric said that even if he respected judicial processes, it was obvious that the U.S would never accept the appeal verdict.

Fauzan also said that MMI, which is headed by Ba'asyir, had arranged a visit to the U.S. Embassy to "formalize its protest of the country's intervention in Ba'asyir's case".

"We will meet the first secretary of the U.S. Embassy next Tuesday to convey our protest of America's deep intervention in Abu's case," Fauzan said referring to Ba'asyir.