Do you want anything twisted? ask Ask bapak ABB.

--------------Bashir Says Charges Against Him Equate to Ban on Islam---------


Firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Bashir told a court on Monday that the government’s actions against him and the paramilitary training in Aceh were tantamount to banning Islam in Indonesia, .

“This is a trial by the thagut ,” Bashir told the South Jakarta District Court, referring to the term in the Koran for those who worship as God anything other than Allah.

“I’m being tried for defending Islam.”

The 72-year-old faces terror charges for funding the training of a paramilitary force in Aceh that police believe aimed to launch attacks on state leaders and foreigners.

Bashir has admitted to setting up the training camp “to follow orders from Allah that Muslims perform I’dad [prepare for armed conflict] to cause fear among the enemies of Islam, so they don’t disturb Muslims.”

On Monday, he said the paramilitary training was the implementation of the Islamic teachings, or Shariah, and any attempt to challenge it would mean the government had outlawed the nation’s most widespread religion.

“The paramilitary training is recognized by Shariah, and I say the religious teachings should not be violated,” Bashir said in response to the prosecution’s statements. “If the implementation of Sharia was banned, it would be that the government had banned Islam in Indonesia.”

Monday’s hearing was held to allow the prosecution to defend its indictment against Bashir, who could face the death penalty if found guilty.

In the same court on March 3, the hard-line preacher lashed out at the United States and its allies for their “relentless attempts” to convict him of terrorism.

“We shall not respond to the defendant’s arguments linking his indictment to foreign countries,” prosecutor Andi Muhammad Taufik said on Monday. “The indictment is concerned with the crime of terrorism. It doesn’t have any political motives.”

Achmad Michdan, a lawyer for the cleric, said after the hearing that the terror trial was groundless because there was no law that banned paramilitary training in Indonesia.

“There is no law on civilians who conduct paramilitary training, so I don’t see the crime in it,” he said.

Munarman, a lawyer for Bashir, who is better known as the spokesman for the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), turned emotional on Monday after the prosecution described him as impolite and disrespectful following a statement he made last week about Dulmatin, a notorious bomb maker wanted for the 2002 Bali bombings.

Last week, Munarman questioned how the prosecutors could conclude Bashir and the late Dulmatin once discussed the Aceh camp when no one else was said to have been present during the conversation.

“Did the police and prosecutors interrogate Dulmatin from inside the grave?” he said during last week’s hearing.

After the hearing, Munarman approached the prosecution’s desk and got involved in a heated exchange with a prosecutor.

The hearing was adjourned until Thursday.

( first time in my life I've been stuck for words, "following Allah's orders?" ABB said, what, to incite others to commit acts of terrorism, while he stays out of range? He needs to get himself an authorized copy of the Quran (as opposed to that what the Wahabi's mass-produce) and re-read it instead of spouting rhetoric of what- 'he' - thinks the Quran should say) ABB has already admitted to setting up that armed training camp, guilty of that makes him an accomplice to the rest!) Hmm, mata gelap seh dese fen')