September 22, 2002	Sunday	Rajab 14, 1423

JAKARTA, Sept 21: Indonesia will not surrender a militant Islamic leader named in reports last week as being linked to international terror plots, press reports on Saturday quoted the justice minister saying.

The minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, was quoted in the Republika daily as saying Indonesia would not authorize the extradition of Abubakar Ba’asyir, linked by Time magazine to an alleged threat against US embassies in Jakarta and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

“The Department of Justice will defend him,” the minister said.

“Who accused him of being a terrorist? It’s a new accusation of the United States. We can’t accept it just like that because we also don’t yet have an anti-terrorism law,” the Kompas daily quoted him as saying.

Mahendra said that if the American accusations against Ba’asyir were proven, Indonesia would believe them.

Ba’asyir is chairman of the Indonesian Mujahedin Council, an umbrella organization which advocates Islamic law.

Time reported that he had contact with Omar al-Faruq, whom the CIA alleged admitted to being the Southeast Asian kingpin of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terror network.

Singapore has also labelled Ba’asyir a leader of alleged terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). According to a CIA report referred to by Time, Ba’asyir authorized al-Faruq to use operatives and resources from JI to carry out al-Faruq’s alleged plan to bomb US embassies in Jakarta and elsewhere in the region.

Ba’asyir denies knowing al-Faruq and says JI does not exist.

The Time report also alleged Faruq admitted to two assassination plots against Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri. One failed last year when the bomb exploded prematurely at a Jakarta shopping mall, the magazine said.

In a newspaper interview published on Saturday the Malaysian man convicted of carrying that bomb, Taufik bin Abdul Halim, denied his target was the president.

Amien Rais, speaker of Indonesia’s People’s Consultative Assembly, urged people on Saturday not to “over-react” to what Time reported.

Indonesian police are also questioning an Arabic man with a German passport detained for possible ties to al-Faruq.

Indonesian intelligence officers arrested Seyam Reda on Tuesday for allegedly violating immigration law by claiming to be a journalist while using a tourist visa.

Police allege he had videotapes showing the “training of armed civilian groups” in an Indonesian conflict zone such as Poso or Maluku.—AFP