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Bashir misses out on getting jail term cut
Firebrand Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has missed out on a cut to his jail term, in a surprise move which has outraged his followers. Bashir's personal aide Hasyim Abdullah told AAP that the 67-year-old was not included in remissions granted to Indonesian prisoners to mark the end of Islam's Ramadan fasting month. "He did not get it," he said. Abdullah said the denial was the direct result of Australian "meddling" in Indonesia's justice system.Foreign Minister Alexander Downer travelled to Jakarta last month to try to persuade President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to block sentence reductions for people convicted of terrorist offences. But Mr Downer said he had not expected Indonesia to agree after Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin said remissions for Thursday's Eid al-Fitr Muslim holiday, known as Lebaran, would go ahead according to existing regulations.  A spokesman for the Bashir-founded Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, or Indonesian Council of Holy Warriors, said the elderly cleric, jailed in March for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings, appeared to one of the few prisoners to miss out. "We deplore the Australian regime which is clearly intervening in his judicial process," the MMI's Fauzan al-Anshari told AAP. "But Ustadz (honoured cleric) Abu told me he accepts the decision with an open heart. Hopefully there is a blessing in disguise from Allah." Fauzan urged Bashir's followers and "all Indonesian Muslims" to remain calm, including the cleric's students from the radical Ngruki school in the central Java city of Solo, who rioted when Bashir was rearrested last year."We advise all his followers to be patient and not be emotional," he said. Lawyer Mohammad Assegaf said he was still waiting to be informed of the decision. The decision will please Canberra and the United States, which believe Bashir is the spiritual leader of the al-Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiah terrorist movement. But the head of the terrorism desk at Indonesia's Security Ministry, Major-General Ansyaad M'bai said he did not believe there would be a backlash among Bashir's followers in the paramilitary Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, or Indonesian Council of Holy Warriors. Camouflage-clad MMI supporters and members of the terrorist-linked Islamic Defenders Front led rioting in Jakarta and Sumatra last April after Bashir was rearrested in a move which ultimately led to his jailing in March this year for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings. "I don't think it will happen again," M'bai told AAP. "I think the terrorists and MMI are already angry at us, so it will not make any difference whether he gets the remissions were given to him or not. "They will still be angry." Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-11-03 |
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