Straits Times March 23, 2012
Osama bin Laden gave the Jemaah Islamiyah $30,000 (Rp 322 million) to carry out terror attacks in Southeast Asia, a key witness in the ongoing trial of Bali bombmaker Umar Patek told a Jakarta court yesterday.
Ali Imron said the funds were sent to his older brother Mukhlas, a JI leader who was executed in 2008 for his role in the 2002 Bali blasts that killed 202 people. Ali Imron is serving a life term for taking part.
Asked by prosecutors whether there was a link between Al-Qaeda and the JI, he said: “Osama’s connection with us was on an individual level. Mukhlas said in 2001 he had met Osama, who gave $30,000 for jihad in South-east Asia.”
His testimony is believed to be the first time a court has heard explicitly that the Al Qaeda leader financed the South-east Asian terror network, even though others have alluded to it.
Terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, who spoke at a defense summit in Jakarta, said: “If not for Al Qaeda, JI could not have carried out such a large attack as they did not have the money.”
The funds, the authorities said, also went towards the 2003 truck bomb blast at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 and injured some 150 people.
Indonesian authorities had previously disclosed that the funds for the Bali blasts came from JI operations chief Hambali, who is currently in United States custody and likely to face a military tribunal.
Regional sources said Hambali received the funds in Karachi from Ammar al-Baluchi, the nephew of Sept11, 2001 terror mastermind and Osama’s right-hand man, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Hambali then handed the cash over to JI treasurer Wan Min Wan Mat, who passed it on to Mukhlas.
Osama was shot dead by US forces in a raid on his hideout in the Pakistani frontier town of Abbottabad in May last year, months after Patek was arrested by Pakistani forces there and deported after having been on the run for close to 10 years.
Patek is on trial for six charges, including premeditated murder for the Bali bombings and for bombings at six Jakarta churches on Christmas Eve in 2000, as well as identification fraud and illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
On Monday, Patek’s lawyer denied his client had been in that town to meet Osama, saying he just happened to be there as part of his plans to migrate to Afghanistan.
Patek, like Mukhlas and Ali Imron, had trained with other JI members at the Mujahidin Military Academy in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the early 1990s, where they picked up various weaponry and explosives skills, Ali Imron told the court.
He gave a lengthy account of how the plot was hatched, and said Patek seemed reluctant in the days before the blast.
He recounted how several explosives detonated prematurely as they were being shifted into filing cabinets in a waiting van, and Patek said perhaps the bombing should not be carried out.
“Like him, I did not agree (about carrying out the bombing), but did not dare resist,” he said.
The accident led to plotters bringing forward the attack, and stepping up their camouflage. He said: “We played infidel Western music, having already shaved off our beards and dyed our hair.”
Patek told the court he did not assemble the bomb, saying he did not have the knowledge needed for a big explosion.
“Only [dead JI bombmaker] Azahari Husin knew how to,’ he said. ‘I was then less than 40kg, so I could not even lift the filing cabinets.’
The hearing resumes on Monday.
(read in the JG)
vr 23 maa 2012 - 6:44