SOLO, (Indonesia), Oct 20: Australia, united in a national day of mourning on Sunday for the victims of the Bali bomb blast, warned of further attacks while Indonesian police formally detained a Muslim cleric accused of links to terrorism.
Indonesian authorities, under fire overseas for alleged lax security measures against extremists, were shocked into action by the Bali carnage, and launched a crackdown on terrorist suspects and rushing through an emergency anti-terror decree.
However, police admitted they had no firm suspects for the Bali bombing.
Elderly cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was arrested in his hospital bed in Solo city on Java island on Saturday and formally detained on Sunday, for failing to answer a summon for questioning over bombings two years ago.
“At around noon we officially changed his status into a police detainee,” said the national director of criminal investigations, Brig-Gen Aryanto Sutadi.
Bashir, 64, has not been named in connection with the Bali blast but has been implicated in a spate of church bombings in Indonesia that killed 18 people on Christmas Eve, 2000.
Police say Al Qaeda operative Omar al-Faruq, who was arrested in Indonesia and later handed over to US authorities, had implicated Bashir, an avowed admirer of Osama bin Laden.
Singapore and Malaysia accuse Bashir of terror links. Singapore says he is the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian group suspected to be linked to Al Qaeda.
Foreign and some Indonesian leaders have voiced suspicion the Bali bombing was planned by Al Qaeda, possibly in conjunction with Jemaah Islamiyah.
Australia warned of possible reprisal attacks in the event of the arrest of Bashir or other suspected extremists.
Dozens of Bashir’s followers who spent the night outside the Muhammadiyah Hospital gradually dispersed after receiving police assurances he would not be forcibly moved.
Sutadi said Bashir, suffering from apparent breathing problems, would be allowed to recover in hospital and the 30-day detention period would only begin when he had regained his strength. Ahmad Khalid, one of Bashir’s lawyers, said his client could be discharged within three days and “hopefully, then the police will be able to question him”.
Bashir has denied the terror allegations against him as lies “manipulated by the United States and the Jews”.
For the time being, police are sticking to the penal code rather than using the new emergency anti-terrorism powers that authorize death by firing squad for some offences and detention without trial.—AFP