Hambali Goes to Gitmo

By Zachary Abuza

Today President Bush formally acknowledged the existence of the CIA’s secret prisons abroad, and stated that he had ordered some 14 top-level Al Qaeda operatives to be moved to Guantanamo Bay. This raises an interesting issue regarding whether these suspects should in fact be tried in the United States, or in their home countries.

A perfect example of this is the case of Riduan Isamudin, better known as Hambali, an Indonesian national. Hambali was a member of Al Qaeda’s shura – the highest ranking non-Arab in the organization as well as the operations chief for Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been responsible for some of the most consistently lethal attacks in the world: the October 2002 Bali night club bombings that killed 202 people; the August 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott; the September 2004 Bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta; and the September 2005 triple bombings in Bali that killed 20.

The Indonesian government has long wanted Hambali, and has used the American Government’s refusal to give direct access to him as an excuse for the lax prosecutions of people such as JI’s spiritual leader Abu Bakar Ba’asyir who is now out of prison. As Indonesia’s chief of Counter-terrorism Ansyad M’Bai told the Antara News Agency, "Therefore, Indonesia until now continues to insist that the US send back Hambali for trial at home in order to uncover various terror acts and other criminal acts perpetrated by Hambali in the country.”

Yet, Indonesia has done little to instill confidence that they would prosecute Hambali effectively. Ba’asyir served less than four years. His colleague and one of JI’s founding members, Abu Jibril, served only a few months in an Indonesian jail (after serving three years in Malaysia) for an immigration violation. Yet this author has video footage of Jibril holding an automatic weapon, imploring followers to wage sectarian violence; fighting that led to the death of 8-9,000 people in 1999-2001. Two days ago an Indonesian court sentenced Abdul Aziz, a high school teacher, to 8 years in prison - two-less than what the prosecution had asked for - for his direct role in supporting the Bali II bombers and for running a website which JI leaders used to communicate and post messages.

Meanwhile the government continues to give light sentences to those who have had only limited roles in the attacks. In August, as part of an annual national independence day amnesty, 10 of the 33 individuals arrested in conjunction with the 12 October 2002 Bali bombing had their sentences reduced and one, Puryanto, who was arrested for harboring some of the bombers, walked free as a result of his three month remission. Three of the Bali bombers, Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra remain on death row, though they are now all appealing their sentences.

Yesterday an Indonesian court announced that some six Australian drug smugglers, part of the “Bali Nine,” would face the death penalty for their roles in the multi-million dollar heroin ring. In making his ruling, Chief Judge Iskander Kamil said "Indonesia has been stamped as a nation not prepared to give the death sentence to foreigners, but the law doesn't recognize skin color - and that's consistent with the law as it's enacted here.” It seems though that Indonesia is far more willing to prosecute foreign nationals for drug smuggling than it is willing to prosecute its own nationals for crimes that kill Indonesians and foreigners indiscriminately and whose acts have drained the Indonesian economy. Tourist arrivals to Indonesia in first half of 2006 were down7.54% to 1.89 million, mainly in Bali, where foreign arrivals at the Denpassar airport fell 19.11%.

Until Indonesia takes its responsibility to prosecute not only those directly involved in planning and executing terrorist acts, but also those who support terrorism financially and materially, Hambali will likely remain in US custody.

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