U.S. shares files on Hambali with RI
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.