T

he government will track the movements of suspected terrorist Riduan '€œHambali'€ Isamuddin after his release from the US-run Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) prison, following strong indications that the US government will continue to dismantle the high-security naval base facility before US President Barack Obama steps down from power in January 2017.

Insp. Gen. Arief Dharmawan, deputy head of enforcement at Indonesia'€™s National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), said his office would organize any attempt to try Hambali in court on home soil, should President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo administration decide on such a step.

Arief said, however, that the plan to extradite Hambali would depend on high-level negotiations between the US and Indonesia, although the counterterror body was keen to let the al-Qaeda-affiliated man stay at the Gitmo facility in Cuba.

'€œIf you ask me what the most convenient course of action is, it'€™s better that Hambali doesn'€™t return. But if [the government] decides to legally process him after repatriation, so be it,'€ he told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

In 2010, the US turned down the National Police'€™s request to give up Hambali for trial in Indonesia.

Arief also said he was unsure whether Hambali could still be tried for a crime he allegedly committed more than a decade ago, considering the fact that there existed an expiration date for pressing charges. '€œWe still have to go through a long evaluation process,'€ he said.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arrmanatha Nasir indicated that there was no rush to bring Hambali home, saying that the government still had direct access to the suspect should there be a need to glean more information out of him.

'€œThere is currently a heightened sense of cooperation among countries to overcome terrorism. Our interest is to prevent [further] attacks,'€ he said.

Hambali, the alleged leader of regional terrorist group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) and a known associate of Osama bin Laden, was captured in Thailand in 2003.

He was reportedly held at secret prisons run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before being transferred to Gitmo 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.

According to Reuters, a US official confirmed on Thursday that the US government had transferred to Oman 10 Yemeni nationals detained at Gitmo, bringing the population down to 93, the lowest level since President Barack Obama took office in 2009 and pledged to close the facility.

The prisoner transfer, which took place on Wednesday, follows Obama'€™s insistence on shutting down the internationally condemned prison in his latest State of the Union address, opening up the possibility that other prisoners, including Hambali, may be subject to resettlement.

Lee Wolosky, a US State Department official who negotiates transfers, said there were 34 more prisoners who were on a recommended list for transfer if security conditions could be met in the receiving country. Wolosky said these shortlisted detainees may still be moved by mid-2016, according to The New York Times.

A number of prisoners have already been freed and resettled in places other than their home countries with detainees sent to Uruguay, Estonia, Kazakhstan and Oman. Of the 779 detainees brought to the prison in 2002, most have been freed or transferred without facing any charge.

While it is still unclear whether Hambali was among those on the waiting list, Andy Rachmianto, the Foreign Ministry'€™s director for international security and disarmament, claimed that the US had yet to approach the government to discuss the possibility of relocation because they still considered Hambali a '€œhardcore'€ threat.

Andy did, however, confirm that Indonesia would certainly process him legally, should the US have him repatriated. '€œThat is our principle, but we also haven'€™t received any request by Hambali himself to be brought back. Maybe he feels more comfortable being detained there,'€ he told the Post on Saturday.

Part of the reason why, the senior diplomat suggested, was due to Indonesia'€™s problem with overcapacity in its prisons, which are mostly used to detain drug convicts.

'€œThe government is pushing for a detention center solely for terror convicts, as mixing them with other prisoners carries with it the risk of radicalization in the facility,'€ he said.

Mahfudz Siddiq, the chairman of the House of Representatives'€™ Commission I overseeing defense, intelligence and foreign affairs, urged the government to be decisive with Hambali'€™s resettlement if it saw the need for him to return.

Mahfudz insisted that Indonesia had the capacity to try Hambali. '€œSince we have the complete range of legal instruments necessary to handle terrorism, I suggest that Indonesia legally process Hambali, to uphold our sovereignty,'€ he said.

Even so, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician said the government should only do so if they fulfilled several requirements, such as seeking out the optimal time to carry out the prison transfer.