Bali bomb investigators target Indonesian cleric

Police in Indonesia investigating the Bali bombing say they have a sizeable evidence pointing to the involvement of cleric Mr…

Police in Indonesia investigating the Bali bombing say they have a sizeable evidence pointing to the involvement of cleric Mr Abu Bakar Bashir.

Police are also investigating other terrorist acts linked to the militant Islamist Jemaah Islamiah group, of which Mr Bashir is the alleged spiritual leader.

Lawyers for Mr Bashir claim the police case against the cleric is built on the testimony of one self-confessed al-Qaeda member. But a police lawyer today said they have a long list of other sources for evidence.

No one has claimed responsibility for last month's Bali blasts that killed over 200 people. But speculation has centred on Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian Islamist group that intelligence agencies say has planned attacks throughout the region, and that has been linked to al-Qaeda.

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The arrest of Mr Bashir came after the Bali attacks. However, police have not linked him to the bombing but to church bombings in 2000, an alleged plot to murder Indonesian President Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri, and immigration violations.

Mr Bashir denies any wrongdoing or links with Jemaah Islamiah, and yesterday his lawyers asked a Jakarta court to annul his arrest and order him freed.

Separately, police in the Sumatran city of Medan said they had arrested a man, who resembles one of the suspects in the Bali bombings, trying to leave the country on a false passport.

The man, whom police did not name, was seeking to board a flight to Penang in Malaysia when he was picked up on Monday, a police spokesman said.

AFP