Bali bomb accused admits lying over links to Muslim cleric

JAKARTA - A self-confessed participant in last year's bomb attacks on Bali says he made up some statements linking him to a militant Muslim cleric after seeing another Bali suspect tortured.

Amrozi was testifying in the treason trial of charismatic preacher Abu Bakar Bashir, suspected of heading a Southeast Asian network of radical Muslims.

Bashir has denied the existence of the network, Jemaah Islamiyah, as well as involvement in any bombings, including those in Bali's Kuta Beach strip which killed more than 200 people last October.

Asked about statements to police that he had attended sermons given by Bashir in Malaysia, Amrozi said: "That's not true. I just made that up."

Asked why, he said: "I saw my brother being tortured. I was also threatened."

Amrozi appeared to be referring to his elder brother Mukhlas who, with a third brother, is also an accused in the bombing.

Prosecutors have charged Bashir with committing treason by leading Jemaah Islamiyah and involvement in incidents ranging from a plot to kill President Megawati Sukarnoputri when she was vice-President to bombings of churches in 2000.

Bashir has not been named as a suspect in the Bali case.

Amrozi did say he had met Bashir twice, once in Malaysia and once in Indonesia, and testified that he knew Faturahman Al-Ghozi, a self-confessed member of Jemaah Islamiyah.

He said Al-Ghozi had told him he was the one who exploded a bomb at the Philippine ambassador's house in Jakarta in 2000, for which Amrozi said he had supplied the explosives and a car used in the blast.

Amrozi said he had also been involved in a church bombing in East Java with Hambali, identified by authorities as Jemaah Islamiyah's operations chief. Officials say Bashir was the spiritual leader of the group.

Bashir was asked on radio before the trial resumed whether he expected prosecutors to use Amrozi to link him to Jemaah Islamiyah.

"There are efforts going that way but because nothing's there, no hole will be found," he said.

"There is an order from outside forces to make me unpopular because America is afraid of my sermons," he said, adding he knew Amrozi only as someone who once picked him up for a speech he was giving at an Islamic school.

The case is a test of Megawati's will to curb Islamic radicalism in the world's most populous Muslim nation, while ensuring Indonesian justice is seen to be fair, an important challenge before next year's first direct presidential election.

Amrozi is charged with plotting terror acts and accused of buying explosives and a mini-van that were made into a huge car bomb in Bali.

He faces the death penalty if convicted.

- REUTERS

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