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Indonesia frees cleric linked to Bali bombing
JAKARTA, Jan 8, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – A radical cleric linked to the deadly Bali
bombings was freed from prison early Friday, Indonesian authorities said,
stirring grief and anger among victims nearly 20 years after Indonesia’s
worst terror attack.
Abu Bakar Bashir, 82, is considered the spiritual leader of militant group
Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Islamist network responsible for the 2002 Bali
terror attack that killed more than 200 people, most of them foreign
tourists.
The firebrand preacher had completed an unrelated jail term for helping
fund militant training in conservative Aceh province. But he has long been
suspected of involvement in the holiday island bombings, Indonesia’s worst
terror attack.
A white van with Bashir inside left Gunung Sindur prison around 5:30 am
local time (2230 GMT Thursday), accompanied by members of Indonesia’s elite
counter-terror squad, Densus 88.
“He was handed over to his family and a team of lawyers who came to pick
him up at the penitentiary,” national prisons spokeswoman Rika Aprianti said.
Bashir was expected to return to his hometown Solo city in Java later
Friday.
Originally sentenced to 15 years in 2011 for funding militants, his term
was later cut due to regular sentence reductions handed to most prisoners in
Indonesia.
Bashir had been previously jailed over the Bali nightclub bombings, but
that conviction was quashed on appeal.
He has repeatedly denied involvement in the attacks and his exact role in
the blasts has long been the subject of debate.
Bashir’s lawyers had appealed for his release citing his age and risk of
contracting Covid-19 in the Southeast Asian nation’s notoriously overcrowded
prison system.
Bashir has refused to renounce his extremist views in exchange for
leniency.
Two years ago, plans to grant him early release on humanitarian grounds
sparked a backlash at home and in Australia. Dozens of Australians were
killed in the Bali attacks and the early release plan was shelved.
His planned release Friday brings back the “horror of the memories” for Jan
Laczynski, 51.
Laczynski was drinking with friends at the Sari Club before flying back to
Australia. Hours later, five of his friends were among the hundreds killed in
the bomb blasts.
“It hurts me a lot. I wanted to see justice done,” Laczynski told AFP from
Melbourne.
“There are still people even next week having operations for their burns;
people are still suffering.”
Several JI members implicated in the attacks were later executed or killed
in confrontations with Indonesian authorities.
The 2002 bombings — and a later attack on the holiday island in 2005 —
prompted Jakarta to strengthen co-operation with the US and Australia in
counter-terrorism.
Al-Qaeda-linked JI was founded by a handful of exiled Indonesian militants
in Malaysia in the 1980s and grew to include cells across Southeast Asia.
As well as the Bali bombings, the extremist group was blamed for a 2003 car
bomb at the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta and a suicide car bomb the following
year outside the Australian embassy.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0927 hrs