Posted on 06/17/2003 10:40:55 AM PDT by knighthawk
THE man accused of making the bombs that killed three and wounded 15 in a McDonald's outlet in eastern Indonesia last year, told a Jakarta court yesterday he was a regular visitor to a terrorist training camp allegedly linked to extremist Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.
Testifying in Bashir's trial, Suriyadi Mas'ud said he had been to Camp Abu Bakar in the southern Philippines seven times, usually escorting other Indonesian Islamic militants. Like Bashir, the camp is named after a disciple of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed.
Run by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the camp taught shooting and bomb-making, Mas'ud told the court.
He was asked to escort the other militants by an organisation called Wahdah Islamiah, led by Usztad Zaikun. Asked to list the terrorists who went to the camp, the plump and bespectacled alleged bombmaker said he couldn't. "They always changed their names," he explained.
The terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiah established a training camp at Camp Abu Bakar in 1997, according to a Singapore government report published earlier this year.
A self-described entrepreneur, Mas'ud denied knowing Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of JI, the organisation deemed responsible for the October 12 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people.
Like many other prosecution witnesses in the trial, he said he had seen Bashir's name only in newspapers.
Bashir is charged with treason and ordering a series of church bombings on Christmas Eve 2000. He denies taking part in terrorism and belonging to JI.
Mas'ud resiled yesterday from the information he had earlier given police – that he had heard the detained terrorist Fathur Rahman, alias Ghozi, and someone called Usamah talking about Bashir visiting the military camp.
Mas'ud admitted to the court that he had smuggled weapons into Indonesia from The Philippines, and that Bali bomber Imam Samudra had heard about it and asked him the price.
He explained he had met Samudra at a terrorist meeting in Banten in west Java in 2001. "If I'm not mistaken (the meeting) was about making terror on foreign facilities in Indonesia," he said.
In testimony characterised by denials, the accused bomber said he had no clear intention of bringing the weapons into Indonesia from The Philippines.
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