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US rejects RI request to try Hambali in Indonesia
The United States has turned down the Indonesian police’s request to hand over terror suspect Riduan “Hambali” Isamuddin for trial in the country, officers said Monday
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he United States has turned down the Indonesian police’s request to hand over terror suspect Riduan “Hambali” Isamuddin for trial in the country, officers said Monday.
National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi said Indonesia would have to wait until Hambali’s trial in the United States had finished before it could lodge another request for access to the high-profile suspect.
“We just have to accept that we can’t bring Hambali back to be tried here,” he said.
Hambali, the alleged leader of the regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and a known associate of Osama bin Laden’s, was captured in Thailand in 2003.
He was reportedly held at secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
Hambali reportedly served as the only non-Arab on al-Qaeda’s advisory council.
Born Encep Nurjaman in Cianjur, West Java, Hambali has been linked to the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, most of them foreigners, as well as foiled plots to attack foreign embassies and other targets in Singapore.
The Associated Press reported last week that the US government was considering plans to try Hambali in Washington, DC, with the US Justice Department expected to make a final decision in a few weeks’ time.
The plan has drawn fierce criticism from Republican legislators who say it would be too dangerous and costly, from the security perspective, to conduct a high-profile terrorist trial in the nation’s capital.
“Moving terrorist detainees to within a mile of the White House and blocks from the US Capitol for show trials is a mistake,” congressman Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on his website.
Republican congressman Frank Wolf said trying Hambali in Washington could cost up to US$250 million a year.
The families of the Bali bomb victims, meanwhile, have backed calls for Hambali to be tried in Indonesia.
Brian Degan, a former magistrate whose 21-year-old son Josh was among the 88 Australians killed in 2002, suggested Hambali be tried where the crime was committed, as it would be under “normal circumstances”.
“And even though I would welcome him being placed on trial, it just seems to me awkward and perhaps opening up a can of worms and a can of defenses if the Americans try him in America.”
National Police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri previously said he would discuss Hambali’s extradition with other agencies, including the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), and file a formal request to the United States to interrogate the “high-value” terrorist inmate.
Ito said Indonesia would use the 2002 Bali bombings as its basis for trying Hambali in Indonesia.
