JAKARTA, 5 November 2004 — Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir told a court yesterday his terrorism trial was a joke and mocked prosecutors by challenging them to file more bombing charges against him so the “thrill” was complete. Delivering a scathing defense statement, Bashir accused the world’s most populous Muslim nation of bending to US President George W. Bush. He earlier said he hoped God would punish the United States for Bush’s re-election.
Prosecutors have accused Bashir of leading an Al-Qaeda-linked militant network and inciting others to carry out attacks such as a suicide bombing at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in August last year that killed 12 people.
“I’m being charged with the Marriott bombing despite the fact I had been in jail for a year. I did not even know there was a hotel called the Marriott,” said Bashir, 66, wearing his trademark white cap and a checked scarf. “These charges are jokes. To make the charges more colorful I suggest the bombing at the KPU, the bombing in Kuningan and the bombing at the Indonesian Embassy in Paris be included so that the thrill is complete.”
He later shed tears when reciting an Islamic prayer. Indonesia has been hit by numerous bomb attacks in the past several years. The most recent was a suicide bombing outside the Australian Embassy in the Jakarta suburb of Kuningan in September which killed 10 people.
A small blast hit the election commission, or KPU, in July, and there was a similar small explosion outside the Indonesian Embassy in Paris last month. Bashir’s lawyers called for the court to drop the trial due to what they see as shortcomings in legal technicalities, and described the charges as “manipulative legal fiction”.
“The content of the charges was not based on real fact,” said Mohammad Assegaf, one of Bashir’s lawyers, reading the 100-page defense statement. “Therefore, overall this legal fiction made up by the prosecutors was a series of imaginative stories linked to Abu Bakar Bashir.” Many see the trial that began last week as an early test of promises by new President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to fight Islamic militancy. Speaking to reporters before his trial resumed, Bashir said God would respond to Bush’s victory.
“... Maybe there will be a disaster in America because President Bush keeps committing crimes. Unless he changes, God willing, there will be a disaster,” he said. The trial was adjourned until Nov. 11. Bashir was arrested shortly after bombs ripped through two nightclubs in Bali in 2002, killing 202 people, but courts ruled charges brought under the criminal code over his leadership of the Jemaah Islamiyah network, seen as the regional arm of Al-Qaeda, and links to earlier violence were unproven.
He instead served 18 months for immigration violations but was re-arrested once that sentence had been served. Prosecutors have charged Bashir with leading Jemaah Islamiyah in relation to the Marriott and Bali attacks. Authorities have blamed Jemaah Islamiyah for both. He could face the death penalty if found guilty.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s military said yesterday that troops had killed six separatist rebels in the latest clashes in Aceh province, where security forces are waging a major offensive against guerrillas. Two rebels were killed in an encounter in the region’s Aceh Jaya district yesterday, said a military spokesman, Anang Murtiyoso.
On Wednesday, soldiers gunned down four guerrillas in separate clashes in Aceh Jaya and East Aceh, the military said. Rebels could not be reached for comment on the military claims. The government launched a massive military campaign in Aceh in May 2003 to crush the rebels.
Top Security Minister Widodo Adi Sucipto, who visited the region this week to assess whether a state of civil emergency should be maintained, estimated that the rebels still had some 2,500 men armed with some 850 weapons. The rebels have been fighting since 1976 for independence in Aceh, a resource-rich region on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
