Terrorism charges filed against Indonesian cleric

[August 11, 2010]  JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Indonesia's best-known radical Islamic cleric was charged Wednesday with planning terrorist attacks, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death, police said.

Abu Bakar Bashir was arrested on Monday for allegedly helping set up and fund a terror cell that was plotting high-profile assassinations and attacks targeting foreigners at luxury hotels in the capital.

Investigators have collected strong evidence tying the fiery 71-year-old cleric to an al-Qaida-linked terror cell discovered in westernmost Aceh province in February, said Lt. Gen. Ito Sumardi, chief detective for the national police.

"He has been officially detained and charged with violating the anti-terrorism law," Sumardi told reporters, adding that authorities compiled their case by combing Bashir's bank records, tapping telephone conversations, and hearing confessions from other suspected militants.

Bashir is best known as a co-founder and spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked network responsible for a string of suicide bombings in the world's most populous Muslim nation, including the 2002 attacks on Bali island that killed 202 people, most of them Western tourists.

He has been arrested twice before and spent several years in jail, but this is the first time officials say they have evidence directly linking him to terrorist activities.

Bashir faces a maximum penalty of death if found guilty, said Edward Aritonang, spokesman for the national police.

[Associated Press; By NINIEK KARMINI]

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