RI awaits US decision on return of Hambali

Lilian Budianto, ,  The Jakarta Post, ,  Jakarta   |  Sat, 01/24/2009 3:23 PM  |  Headlines

The Indonesian government has yet to plan an appeal for the return of Guantanamo detainee Hambali following the order to close the infamous detention center in Cuba within a year, a Foreign Ministry official says.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Friday that the Indonesian government would wait for further details from the US government about the future of Hambali, who Indonesian police said was responsible for the death of 202 people in the 2002 Bali bombings, before taking any measures. "We will adopt a wait and see approach now," said Faizasyah.

Hambali, transliterated as Riduan Isamuddin in a score of US intelligence official documents, is believed to be a leader of Jamaah Islamiyah, an organization with links to al-Qaeda. He was caught in Thailand in 2003 by the US central intelligence agency and Thai police and transferred to Guantanamo over the allegation of masterminding a number of terrorist attacks in Southeast Asian countries.

"We have yet to receive any information from the *US* authority about what they are going to do with the detainees. Once we receive the clarification, we can then certainly pursue further consular activities and see what the *Indonesian* government might be able to produce," he said.

"As the evidence in this case involving this person might not be available in Indonesia, we have to *first* see what measures the US government will *take against him*."

US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, review military trials of suspects and ban the harshest interrogation methods. The closing will mark the reshaping of prosecution and questioning laws for terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, seven years after the camp was established. An estimated 245 men have been held in Guantanamo for years with charge.

AFP reported that rights groups and legal experts welcomed Obama's order to close Guantanamo, but wondered what to do with the 245 detainees still held there.

"We are concerned by legal ambiguities in the order to shut Guantanamo, and some may say the one-year time line may be too long," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Romero told AFP any suspects still held at Guantanamo when the controversial prison is closed must either be "repatriated to their countries of origin, as long as they won't be tortured, or we must find third party solutions or take responsibility and bring them to the US."

If they are brought to the United States, they "must be transferred to real American courts, charged, tried and convicted under established law," he said.

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