KARACHI, 2 October 2003 — Investigators from Jakarta arrived here yesterday and immediately began interviewing the brother of alleged terror kingpin Hambali and five other Indonesian students detained on suspicion of terror links.
“The four-member team met the six students for over one hour and will meet them again,” a senior Pakistani security official told AFP, declining to give details. “The team have brought some documents with them, questioned them in their own language and took notes.”
The Indonesian officials, representing their country’s police force, foreign ministry and intelligence agency, met the students at a secret location in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, where they are being held.
The six Indonesians were rounded up with 13 Malaysian students from Karachi madrasas in a series of raids last month. Hambali’s brother Rusman Gunawan was arrested on Sept. 1, and provided information which led to raids on Sept. 20 and 22 netting the other 18 students.
The Indonesians put “many” questions to Gunawan, the official said. Pakistani intelligence officials believe the 19 students are a sleeper cell of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Al-Qaeda linked Southeast Asian terror network blamed for a string of deadly bombings in Indonesia, including last October’s Bali nightclub bombing that left 202 people dead.
They are hoping their Indonesian counterparts will shed light on the extent of JI’s presence in Pakistan and Gunawan’s activities.
“We are interested whether they have information about the JI base in Pakistan and also if Hambali has said anything about Gunawan’s role here,” the official said. “We briefed them about the progress in the case and the background of their arrest and activities linked with JI. They were satisfied with Pakistani investigations so far and shared some information.”
The official also revealed that a Malaysian official met the Malaysian detainees last week to discover “possible links of Malaysian students with JI,” he said. Islamabad has said the students are being held on suspicion of terrorist activities or links to terrorists and will be deported once the investigation has concluded. None have been charged.
Pakistani interrogators are trying to determine whether the group was planning attacks and how far their network extended inside this country of 145 million, where more than 500 Al-Qaeda operatives have been captured.
Malaysian officials have said the students were being groomed for future JI attacks. The students had been under surveillance for several weeks following a tip-off from US intelligence based on interrogations of Hambali, who was Asia’s most wanted man until his capture in Thailand on Aug. 11.
He is believed to be JI’s operations chief and Al-Qaeda’s pointman in Southeast Asia.
The students’ arrests have drawn the wrath of religious parties.
