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| Southeast Asia |
| Malaysia to Deport Mohammad Iqbal Rahman |
| 2003-12-19 |
| Kicking him loose, EFL: Thirty months ago, Malaysian authorities locked up Mohammad Iqbal Rahman as a top leader of an al-Qaida-linked Muslim extremist group. The U.S. government called him the terrorist network’s "primary recruiter and second in command." Now — after 2 1/2 years detention without charges or trial — Iqbal, once a suspected terrorist from the Jemaah Islamiyah group, prepares to go free. The government is deporting him as an "undesirable immigrant" to Indonesia, where he faces no charges or jail time. Dammit Iqbal’s case has raised concerns about the future of scores of militant suspects jailed in Malaysia. His release also threatens to complicate already strained relations with the United States. U.S. Embassy officials in Malaysia said they were following the case with concern, but declined to comment further. Iqbal, 46, was arrested in June 2001 at a mosque outside Kuala Lumpur, where he had been based since the mid-1980s, and the government ordered him detained for two years. His arrest was not revealed until January 2002, when Malaysian and Singaporean police announced the first of scores of arrests of Jemaah Islamiyah suspects and a foiled plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Singapore. Iqbal is accused of being a Jemaah Islamiyah leader who vowed to wage armed holy war to build a hardline Islamic state in Southeast Asia. At the time Iqbal’s detention was made public, officials also disclosed links between Hambali and senior al-Qaida operatives, including two Sept. 11 hijackers who used an apartment owned by former Malaysian army Capt. Yazid Sufaat, one of the jailed Malaysians, as a meeting place in 2000. The order detaining Iqbal expired in August, and Home Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, now prime minister, did not renew it. No reason was given, though the possibility of bureaucratic bungling has been raised. Instead, Iqbal was declared an "undesirable immigrant," had his Malaysian permanent residency revoked and was handed to immigration officials for deportation. "Git" "OK" The allegations against Iqbal relate more to fund-raising and fomenting extremism than bomb attacks. He is accused of recruiting Muslims to fight Christians in Indonesia’s restive Muluku province. In August 2000, he became a senior leader of the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, an umbrella organization of fundamentalist Islamic groups headed by Abu Bakar Bashir, Jemaah Islamiyah’s alleged spiritual leader who is serving a prison sentence for treason. Iqbal said this week his detention and deportation were unjust. "I am neither a terrorist nor a sponsor," he said in a statement from an immigration detention camp. "Islamic doctrines totally and unequivocally condemn any act of terrorism." "We’re a religion of peace, haven’t you heard?" Iqbal’s wife, Fatimah Zahrah Abdul Aziz, said Friday that she’s bought Iqbal a ticket to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta on Sunday, as ordered by the government. A Malaysian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Friday that Iqbal was not a wanted man in Indonesia. Indonesian police spokesman Col. Zainuri Lubis confirmed that, saying: "We do not plan to do anything special... . We do not have any criminal record on him." Swell, just swell. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from him again. |
| Posted by:Steve |