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| Southeast Asia |
| Bashir to be sprung next week |
| 2006-06-06 |
| An Indonesian militant cleric imprisoned in connection with the 2002 Bali bombings will return home after his release next week so that he can resume his teachings at the infamous Ngruki school, his lawyer said. Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the alleged spiritual leader of the al-Qaeda-linked militant group Jamaah Islamiyah, helped found the boarding school in Central Java province more than three decades ago. Many of Indonesia's convicted terrorists attended theschool. Ba'asyir, who has denied any involvement in militant acts, will be freed on June 14 after completing 26 months of his 30-month sentence for conspiracy in the Bali nightclub blasts that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists, governmentofficials said Monday. Several months were cut from his sentence for good behavior. Bashir plans to return to Solo, a town 400 kilometers east of the capital Jakarta, so he "can get medical attention and teach again at Ngruki," his lawyer, Mahendradata, told The Associated Press. Mahendradata said he hoped the government would not bow to foreign pressure by finding another reason to keep the 68-year-old cleric behind bars. Australia, which lost 88 citizens in the Bali blasts, has said repeatedly in the past that the original sentence was too short, and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will be meeting with Indonesia's president and top security chiefs later Tuesday. It was not clear if Bashir would be on the agenda. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 time for some WET WORKS! |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-06-06 12:25 |