TheJakartaGlobe
December 15, 2010

Solo : The National Police on Tuesday revealed fresh allegations about detained radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, saying he had been the figurehead of a budding Al Qaeda-style terrorist network.

Petrus Golose, director of the National Anti-Terror Agency (BNPT), said the 72-year-old preacher had been assembling a new network featuring some of the region’s most wanted militants before the police raided their training camp in February.

Bashir is in custody awaiting trial on multiple terrorism charges that carry the death penalty.

It is the third time he has been arrested on terror-related charges since 2002, but so far, authorities have been unable to make the allegations stick.

At a press conference in Solo, Golose showed a chart detailing the network’s hierarchy, with Bashir sitting at the top. Members included Abu Tholut, Abdullah Sonata and slain Al Qaeda-trained bomb-maker Dulmatin.

“These main figures reported directly to Bashir in terms of funding, operational and arms supplies,” Golose said.

The group, along with Bashir’s Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), had financed and organized a secret extremist group dubbed “Al Qaeda in Aceh,” which set up a training camp that authorities raided in February.

Since then, hundreds of suspected militants have been apprehended or killed in police raids. Bashir was arrested in August, while Tholut was nabbed in Solo last week.

National Police spokesman Iskandar Hasan said Bashir provided funds and leadership for the Aceh group, which had reportedly planned to carry out Mumbai-style attacks on Western targets and political figures in Jakarta.

“In November last year, Tholut, Sonata and Dulmatin decided to carry out military training in Aceh and they asked Bashir to be the leader. Sonata and Dulmatin provided weapons,” Iskandar said.

But Bashir’s son, Abdurrachim Bashir, a spokesman for JAT, dismissed the allegations, which appeared to be the strongest against the cleric since his arrest.

“The statement from the BNPT director is a vicious slander. My father was the leader of the JAT, not [of the] Al Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah, or others in Indonesia and the world,” he said.

Abdurrachim said he suspected police had tortured terror suspects into giving false statements against Bashir, especially after Tholut’s arrest.

The JAT also washed its hands of alleged terrorist involvement through former members Tholut and Lutfi Haidaroh, also known as Ubaid.

He said Tholut and Ubaid had left the group by the time they were arrested by the National Police’s antiterror unit, Densus 88.

“We refuse to be associated with any case of terrorist acts,” Abdurrachim said. “The police have no solid evidence to link them with Bashir.”

He said Ubaid had been a member of the JAT’s Tarbiyyah, or preaching division, between 2008 and last year, but quit when he disagreed with the group’s “mission to struggle without violence or weapons.”

Mochammad Achwan, the JAT’s acting leader, has acknowledged knowing Tholut, saying he had been a member of the group in 2008.

But he said Tholut quit after disagreeing with JAT’s focus on using preaching and jihad to eradicate social problems.