Abu Bakar Bashir (C), the alleged mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings, walks as he is visited by Yusril Ihza Mahendra (R), who is the lawyer of Indonesia’s presidential candidate Joko Widodo, at Gunung Sindur prison in Bogor, Indonesia, January 18, 2019. Antara Foto/Yulius Satria Wijaya/via REUTERS
January 22, 2019
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia is reviewing a decision to grant early release to a radical Muslim cleric linked to the 2002 Bali bombings, Abu Bakar Bashir, authorities said, after news of the plan provoked criticism.
Last week, President Joko Widodo said Bashir, 81, would be granted early release on humanitarian grounds, citing his old age and poor health. A legal adviser to Widodo said the cleric would be given unconditional release.
On Monday, Wiranto, the chief security minister, said the government was reviewing the unconditional release.
“The president has ordered related officials to immediately conduct a deeper and more comprehensive examination to respond to the request,” the minister, who uses one name, like many Indonesians, said in a statement.
He added that authorities were “weighing up aspects like the Pancasila”, the secular state ideology to which every convict is required to pledge allegiance, but which Bashir has repeatedly refused to acknowledge.
Bashir, who is considered the spiritual leader of the Islamist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), was convicted under anti-terrorism laws in 2010 for links to militant training camps in the province of Aceh, on the island of Sumatra, and jailed for 15 years. (reut.rs/1qNBwvC)
Although linked to the Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people, Bashir was not convicted for them. Many Australians were among the dead, however, and Canberra has urged against leniency for Bashir.
“We have been very clear about the need to ensure that as part of our joint counter-terrorism efforts … that Abu Bakar Bashir would not be in any position or in anyway able to influence or incite anything,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Cairns in northeastern Queensland on Monday.
The Bali attack spurred Indonesia to set up its elite anti-terror unit Densus 88 or Detachment 88, which received funds and training from Australia and the United States.
Criticism of Bashir’s early release also came from the opposition party, Gerindra, with media quoting a senior party official as saying the release would be a “political maneuver” to gain Islamists’ votes.
The Jakarta Post newspaper said Widodo’s decision was “poorly timed, legally flawed and insensitive.”
(Reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa in JAKARTA, Colin Packham in SYDNEY; Writing by Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
