Cleric's trial tests US antiterror fight

JAKARTA -- Abu Bakar Bashir, a firebrand 66-year-old cleric, stands accused of being East Asia's equivalent of Osama bin Laden and of leading the Muslim extremist group responsible for killing hundreds in the bombings of the Bali nightclubs and a Marriott Hotel here.

His trial, approaching its climax this week, is a landmark in the worldwide legal fight against terrorism and a high-profile test of Indonesia's justice system, six years after the world's most populous Muslim country overthrew its dictator and started a democracy. Busloads of Bashir's chanting supporters have been cramming into a cavernous auditorium to watch the testimony.

At the same time, in the eyes of some within and outside the Bush administration, the case is a test of whether Muslim nations are able to deal with important accused terrorists through trials, or whether the US must find new ways on its own to bring the most dangerous suspects to justice.

But as a five-judge panel deliberates on a verdict that's expected tomorrow, American officials worry that the United States itself is also seemingly on trial, along with its tactics in combating terrorism.

A State Department translator testified on Jan. 13 that US officials had tried to pressure the country's former president into skipping a trial and ''rendering" Bashir to US officials, perhaps to be sent to a third country where torture is allowed.

A senior US official acknowledged to the Globe that he pushed the Indonesian government to arrest Bashir in September 2002 because the Americans had intelligence that Bashir's movement was about to stage terror attacks in Indonesia. But the official denied requesting that Bashir be turned over to the United States.

The Indonesians finally arrested Bashir, a popular preacher with alleged ties to Al Qaeda and a high-profile critic of the United States, soon after the Bali bombings in October 2002 that left 202 dead.

Still, many Indonesians believe that Bashir is being persecuted merely for criticizing the United States, and that Jemaah Islamiyah, the group he is accused of leading, is nothing but a fiction of American propaganda.

The alleged US practice of using extraordinary renditions to remove suspected terrorists to undisclosed locations where they may be more brutally interrogated has provoked outrage among Indonesian human-rights officials who had cited the United States as an example during Indonesia's transition to democracy. Now, many of them constitute Bashir's defense team and are drawing on anti-American feeling to create a climate of support for the cleric.

''This case was initiated by someone who lives in the White House," said A.W. Adnan, one of Bashir's many pro bono defense lawyers, referring to his belief that US political pressure alone spurred his client's arrest.

The State Department has said that extraordinary renditions themselves are not uncommon, but US officials routinely refuse to comment on allegations that such renditions result in brutal interrogations.

State Department translator Fred Burks offered what he said was a window on the process when he testified about a secret meeting in September 2002 between a White House official, a CIA agent, and then-Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Burks, a frequent government critic who worked under contract for the State Department for 18 years, told the Globe that he traveled from Washington to Jakarta with a CIA agent and Karen Brooks, then a White House official, who told him during the trip that the Bush administration wanted Bashir to be ''rendered" to the United States.

''I didn't even know what 'rendering' was until Karen Brooks told me," Burks said. ''All she said is it was a secret turning over of a suspect. The suspect would just disappear, and no one would know what happened."

Brooks, who now works as a business consultant in Asia, responded in an e-mail that Burks's account ''is nonsense" but declined to answer other questions about the meeting.

Megawati refused the US request, though she had previously rendered two other suspects to US authorities, said Burks, who recently gave up State Department work after refusing to sign a new secrecy agreement required of all translators.

Those suspects, Omar al-Faruq of Kuwait and Iqbal Madni of Pakistan, were not Indonesian citizens. Bashir, on the other hand, is an Indonesian and a major public figure in his hometown of Solo, in central Java, where he ran a religious boarding school.

''I can't render somebody like him. People will find out," Burks said Megawati told the Americans.

The senior US official who attended the meeting acknowledged pressing forcefully for Bashir's arrest because US officials had credible evidence from Faruq that Bashir was the head of a terrorist network that was about to attack Indonesia.

But the official said Burks ''must have been confused" about the specific request.

''We wanted him to be picked up and charged under Indonesian law," said the official, who spoke under the condition of anonymity. ''We were saying, 'By the time you see President Bush at the [Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit] in Mexico, if there isn't sort of a sea change in attitude, we are going to reduce our embassy profile, and it is going to be a problem in our bilateral relationship.' "

After Burks testified as a witness for the defense in January, and brought the alleged US tactic into the spotlight, prosecutor Salman Maryadi questioned his character and his sanity.

Maryadi asked Burks about his admitted past use of the drug ecstasy and his website that links to articles about alleged government coverups, mind-control techniques, and UFOs. He also questioned Burks about a poem that he had written about kneeling down to a dead dolphin on beach.

''He worships dolphins, and in Indonesia, this is crazy," Maryadi declared.

But Burks left the courthouse as a minor celebrity, reveling in a round of interviews with the local press.

US officials are furious about Burks's testimony, which they fear could result in Bashir's acquittal.

The official who attended the September 2002 meeting with Megawati described it as the centerpiece of a month-long effort to prevent a terrorist attack in Indonesia.

That month, the official said, US interrogators were told by Faruq, the Kuwaiti who had been rendered to the United States, that Jemaah Islamiyah planned to stage attacks in Indonesia and that Bashir was the group's leader.

Within days, the official said, he and his colleagues held a number of meetings with Indonesian officials at which they demanded the arrest of Bashir. Despite the warnings, Indonesian authorities told the Americans that they could not arrest him without evidence that he had already committed a crime, the official said.

Six weeks later, after explosions ripped through two nightclubs in Bali, Indonesian police picked up Bashir.

At first, he was accused of different crimes: plotting to kill Megawati and giving the go-ahead on a series of bombings, including the Bali bombings. A year later, judges cleared him of all charges except immigration violations. He was released, but immediately rearrested and accused of giving the go-ahead to the Marriott bombing that took place in August 2003, while he was in jail.

Prosecutors, who are still inexperienced at building cases after years of sham trials under the dictator General Suharto, have had a difficult time at trial. A string of witnesses refused to testify. Others showed up but did not link Bashir to any specific acts of violence. Only one witness, Nasir Bin Abbas, connected Bashir to terrorism, testifying that Bashir had put him in charge of terrorist activities in part of the Philippines. Bin Abbas also testified that Bashir bragged about traveling to Afghanistan and meeting Osama bin Laden in a cave.

Still, the most compelling witnesses against Bashir remain in the hands of US intelligence.

US officials have given Indonesians limited access to Faruq, only allowing Indonesia's special terrorist investigators to submit questions in writing, according to the senior US official, who met with the Indonesians about the issue. In Bashir's first trial, Faruq told police in writing that Bashir was the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, but defense lawyers persuaded the judges not to give the testimony much weight, since the witness could not be cross-examined.

A second man who allegedly operated directly under Bashir is Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, an Indonesian who was captured by Thai authorities and rendered to US custody. The United States has not allowed Indonesian investigators any access to Hambali, despite the fact that he is accused of the Bali bombing and many other attacks in Indonesia. US officials say that they fear that giving Indonesians access to him would fuel demands from US courts to make him available to lawyers defending terrorism suspects in the United States.

Chief prosecutor Maryadi, who is battling the perception that he is a tool of the United States for bringing the charges against a man the United States wanted to see behind bars, says he will convict Bashir on his own evidence, the strongest of which is a document called the ''General Manual of the Struggle of Al-Jemaah Al-Islamiyah."

Netted in a police raid, the 40-page manual charts the group's organizational structure, topped with a box that reads ''amir," or ''leader," but never says Bashir's name.

Maryadi considers the manual one of his best pieces of evidence because it proves that the group exists, a fact many Indonesians doubt.

''It is not fiction," Maryadi said. ''It is fact, but some people still think these are made-up stories."

As Indonesia prepares for a verdict this week, US officials say privately that they remain hopeful, but fear that public sentiment may have turned against the prosecution.

Ironically, some international justice specialists say, the United States' own words about the rule of law may be working against it now in Indonesia.

''In the post-Suharto era, people demand evidence," said Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group. ''You can't simply arrest people now on suspicion or on hearsay, or on what many Indonesians believe is pressure from the United States."