JAKARTA, May 28: Key Bali bombing suspects told a Jakarta court on Wednesday that cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, although the leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist group, had played no role in plotting or carrying out past bombings in Indonesia.

“Not at all,” testified Imam Samudra, an alleged mastermind behind last October’s Bali bombings, when asked whether the 64-year-old cleric was linked to the Bali incident or a spate of bombs set off in churches on Christmas Eve of the year 2000.

Samudra and other Bali bombing suspects, admitted to knowing Ba’asyir, a radical preacher who was jailed in Indonesia in the 1980s and has made no secret of his admiration for Osama bin Laden as a good Moslem.

When asked to explain to the court why he and other JI members had blown up the churches and two nightspots in Bali, Samudra answered coolly, “The purpose of the bombings was to fight the enemies of Moslems and infidels.”

He expressed no regret for the 19 Indonesians killed in the Christmas eve bombings of 2000, noting that no Moslems would be inside a church, nor for the Indonesians who were among the 202 people killed in the twin Bali bombings.

“It was unexpected, but most Balinese are not Moslems,” said Samudra.

Samudra said he withdrew past statements he had made to Indonesian police about Ba’asyir, saying they were made under duress since the police had interrogated him while he was naked.

Samudra was the last of four Bali bombings suspects - including Ali Imron, Ali Gufron and Mubarok - flown into Jakarta from Bali to stand as witnesses in the treason trial of Ba’asyir.

All four men are believed to be members of the shadowy JI organization, whose alleged links to terrorist and anti-government activities have a strong bearing on the outcome of Ba’asyir’s treason trial.

Their testimony backed up claims that the JI exists as an organization with Ba’asyir as its leader, but stopped short of linking the militant Moslem group to past terrorist acts.

“According to my feelings, after the death of Abdullah Sungkar, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir assumed the leadership of the JI,” said Imron, another key suspect in the October 12 bombings of two nightspots in Bali.

Imron, the first to testify, told the court he met Ba’asyir on three previous occasions, once at his Islamic boarding school in Solo, Central Java, once in Malaysia, and the last time shortly before he travelled to Pakistan to join the “jihad” against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

In previous statements, Ba’asyir denied JI existed, claiming it was a creation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to discredit Islam.

Adbullah Sungkar and Ba’asyir are the alleged co-founders of the radical JI group, included on the United Nations list of terrorist organizations last year.

Both men fled to Malaysia in the late 1980s to avoid arrest in Indonesia on charges of treason by the regime of former president Suharto. Sungkar died in November 1999, shortly after his return with Ba’asyir to Indonesia.

Ba’asyir was brought to trial last month on similar treason charges for trying to topple the government, and for breaking immigration laws.

Indonesian police have yet to charge Ba’asyir with direct involvement in the Bali bombings.

Imron, Mubarok, Gufron and Samudra all denied direct links between Ba’asyir, the JI and the Bali blasts, or other involvement in terrorist acts.

“I believe that Ba’asyir had no connection with the bombings,” said Gufron.

Gufron testified the JI’s mission was to create an “Islamic community,” a literal translation of “Jemaah Islamiyah”. He added that he had met Osama bin Laden (after whom he recently named his son) while in Pakistan.

In response to prosecutors’ questions about a spate of previous bombings in Bali, Jakarta, Batam and elsewhere, Imron said, “Those bombings were not linked to JI but to individuals, like myself...and organized by Hambali.”

Hambali, an Indonesian national and alleged Al Qaeda operative, is another leader of the JI, who formerly ran its operations in Malaysia and Singapore.

Gufron blamed the so-called Christmas Eve bombings of more than a dozen churches in Batam, Jakarta and other Indonesian cities in 2000, on Hambali and Imam Samudra but denied Ba’asyir’s involvement.

Gufron added he replaced Hambali, among the most-wanted terrorists in Asia, as JI’s chief operations leader after the Christmas Eve bombings.—dpa