JAKARTA, 30 January 2003 — Indonesian police yesterday directly linked radical activist Abu Bakar Bashir for the first time to the bomb attacks on Bali that killed nearly 200 people. A lawyer for Bashir said the activist had condemned the blasts.
Erwin Mappaseng, head of Indonesia’s criminal investigation bureau, told Reuters that Bashir — the alleged head of the Southeast Asian militant Muslim network Jemaah Islamiah — had given his approval for the attacks. Mappaseng said the accusation was based on testimony from Indonesian suspects arrested so far.
Mappaseng was speaking a day after Indonesia’s police chief said for the first time that Jemaah Islamiah was behind the Oct. 12 blasts.
While Bashir is under arrest on treason charges in Jakarta in connection with church bombings in 2000, until now police have not linked him to the Bali blasts. Bashir has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and insists Jemaah Islamiah does not even exist.
In an interview with Reuters, Mappaseng said Bashir was the "superior" to Jemaah Islamiah members who carried out bombings in Indonesia from 2000 to 2002.
"This group can only work after they get a blessing from the emir, which in this case is Abu Bakar Bashir," he said.
Asked if Bashir gave his blessing for the Bali blasts, he said: "Yes. I say that this was not just for Bali. It started in 2000 that each bombing needed the blessing and approval from the emir (Bashir), including the most recent, which was Bali."
The police officer in charge of the Bali investigation, I Made Mangku Pastika, who reports to Mappaseng, said in the same interview that Bashir had given his blessing to the Bali attacks in meetings with some of the Indonesian suspects arrested so far. "Indeed, the role of Abu Bakar Bashir is not only as the inspirer but as the one who gave his blessing in those meetings," Pastika said.
Bashir lawyer Muhammad Assegaf criticized the police for making the allegations. "We strongly deny that statement. During the investigation of all the Bali bomb suspects there has not been the smallest bit of information from the police that links Abu Bakar Bashir. He himself, formally, has condemned the Bali bombing."
The United States and other countries have linked Jemaah Islamiah, which aims to create an Islamic state from several Southeast Asian nations, to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
Adding to comments by the police chief yesterday that Jemaah Islamiah chiefs decided at a meeting in Bangkok in February last year to attack US interests in Indonesia and Singapore, Mappaseng said key Jemaah Islamiah figure Hambali attended that gathering. Terrorism experts have said Hambali was the key link between Jemaah Islamiah and Al-Qaeda.
Police have said that meeting eventually resulted in a plan to target two nightclubs on Bali, which bore the brunt of the bombings and left mainly foreign tourists dead. It was the worst attack since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Thailand has denied media reports that militant groups used it as a base to plot the Bali attacks, and a senior police officer repeated that assertion yesterday. However, Thai police have previously said two senior Jemaah Islamiah leaders, including Hambali, passed through Thailand early last year. (R)
