Author: Lely T. Djuhari, Associated
Press
Publication: The Knoxville News
Sentinel
Date: July 4, 2003
URL: http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/world/article/0,1406,KNS_351_2087214,00.html
Dozens of Muslim militants have
crisscrossed Asia, visiting terror training camps and learning how to use
guns and make bombs, members of an al-Qaida-linked Islamic group testified
Thursday.
Many were being trained to wage
a campaign of violence to topple the government of Indonesia, the world's
most populous Muslim country, and establish an Islamic state, said Ahmad
Sajuli bin Abdullah Rahman.
Another witness, Mohamad _Faiq bin
Hafidh, said he took part in fighting between Muslims and _Christians in
Indonesia's central Maluku islands, where about 10,000 people were killed
between 1999 and 2002.
The two men, imprisoned in _Malaysia,
testified via video link _in the Jakarta trial of Abu Bakar Bashir, suspected
of heading the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah.
Jemaah Islamiyah has been accused
of carrying out the Oct. 12 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly
foreign tourists. Bashir stands accused of a series of church bombings
in 2000 that killed 19 people and of plotting to kill Indonesia's president.
Like three detained militants who
testified from Singapore last week, Abdullah Rahman and Hafidh, along with
a third witness, Agung Biyadi, told the court that Bashir, 64, was the
head of Jemaah Islamiyah.
Witnesses in Indonesia have not
implicated Bashir.
Abdullah Rahman said he was in charge
of logistics in the Malaysian branch of Jemaah Islamiyah and had dispatched
between 20 and 30 militants to the southern Philippines and Afghanistan.
The southern Philippines is _home
to a Muslim insurgency _and Islamic militants that have _been linked to
al-Qaida. Militants _there are believed to have established terror training
camps on remote islands.
Bashir, who has denied all wrongdoing
and says Jemaah Islamiyah does not exist, sat reading a copy of the Quran
during Thursday's trial session. His lawyers boycotted the hearing, claiming
overseas witnesses' testimony was illegal. They earlier claimed that witnesses
in Malaysia and Singapore have been forced into implicating their client.
Judges adjourned the trial until
Tuesday.
