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Indonesia religious figure Is suspect
( 2002-10-18 09:48 ) (7 )

The spiritual leader of an Islamic militant group that reports have linked to the Bali nightclub bombings was named a suspect in a series of deadly church bombings across Indonesia in 2000, a police spokesman said Thursday.

Earlier Thursday, President Megawati Sukarnoputri, looking to prove her resolve on terrorism in the wake of international criticism, won critical parliamentary support for an emergency anti-terror decree, while Australia's prime minister pledged to work with her government to track down the bombers.

Abu Bakar Bashir of the Jemaah Islamiyah group will be summoned to appear for questioning Saturday, Deputy National Police Spokesman Brig Gen. Edward Aritonang told The Associated Press.

Jemaah Islamiyah is suspected of involvement in bombings over the weekend on the resort island of Bali that left at least 183 dead and hundreds injured. Most of the victims were foreign tourists, and the United States and other countries have called on Indonesian authorities to arrest Bashir.

Aritonang said Bashir had not been named a suspect in the Bali attacks, but in a series of bombings on churches on Christmas Eve 2000. Those bombings, in Jakarta and nine other cities and towns, killed 19 people and injured dozens.

"We will call him for questioning as a suspect on Saturday," Aritonang said on arrival in Bali.

He said police decided to declare Bashir a suspect in the church bombings after Indonesian investigators returned from questioning Omar Al-Faruq, a suspected al-Qaida Southeast Asian operative, who was arrested in Indonesia in June and handed over to U.S. authorities.

Bashir could not be reached for comment, but he has repeatedly denied any involvement in the church bombings — as well as the Bali attack.

Speaking late Thursday on El-Shinta radio, Bashir's lawyer, Mohamad Mahendradatta, confirmed that Bashir is being accused of responsibility in the church attacks and that he faces a maximum penalty of death or life in prison. Mahendratta made no other statements.

Indonesia has come under enormous international pressure in recent days to move against Bashir and Jemaah Islamiyah.

Indonesia's neighbors, Singapore and Malaysia, have jailed dozens of suspected Jemaah Islamiyah operatives after they were implicated in plots to attack Western targets in those countries.

However, Indonesia has long feared that taking action against Bashir could fuel a backlash by Islamic extremists. Ministers for the first time — delicately — said this week that al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah exist in the world's most populous Muslim country, but have tip-toed around the issue of moving against it and Bashir.

In Jakarta, Speaker Akbar Tandjung told Megawati she had parliament's support for the emergency decree, which would grant the government expanded power to fight terrorism but could also lead to a confrontation with Islamic extremists, who are widely blamed for the bombings.

"Parliament gives its full support to the government to issue the anti-terrorism government regulation," Tandjung said after meeting Megawati.

The decree is based on legislation that has been stalled for months by parliamentary bickering, mired down because it raises fears that it could free the Indonesian military — with its long, bloody history of human-rights abuses — from the constraints imposed by the still-struggling democracy that has taken root since dictator Suharto was toppled in 1998.

Top officials said the decree could go into affect as early as Friday.

Drafts of the decree indicate it would relax rules of evidence and allow a suspect to be held for three days based on intelligence reports that they had committed — or threatened to commit — acts of terrorism.

Violators could face death or life imprisonment, the draft said.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who lost dozens of countrymen in the bombing, flew to Bali to meet with grieving relatives.

"There are no words I can summon to salve the hurt and suffering and pain being felt by so many," he said at an open-air memorial at the Australian consulate.

He also pledged, one day after forming a joint investigation team with Indonesia, that the bombers would be captured.

"We will do everything in our power to bring justice to those responsible for this foul deed," he said, as relatives and friends of the victims hugged and wept.

Saying it had new — but undisclosed — information about possible threats in Indonesia, Australia urged its citizens to leave the country.

In Bali, police said the probe was focusing on a group of eight people — seven Indonesians and one foreigner — who are being "intensively questioned."

"We hope that we will be able to establish their possible link with the culprits," spokesman Lt. Col. Yatim Suyatmo said. None was identified.

And in Malaysia, authorities said Thursday that a fugitive Malaysian, an Islamic militant with extensive bomb-making skills, was involved in the Bali attack.