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| Top dog: In this 2007 file photo obtained by the Associated Press from a Philippine security official, Indonesian militant Umar Patek addresses fellow militants in an Abu Sayyaf mountain encampment on Jolo island in southern Philippines. Patek had a US$1 million bounty on his head when he was captured in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad Jan. 25, four months before Osama bin Laden was killed there in a US commando attack. (AP/File) |
An
Indonesian militant who allegedly made the explosives used in the 2002 Bali
bombings was escorted home under tight security Thursday, more than six months
after he was captured in northwest Pakistan.
Umar Patek
had a $1 million bounty on his head when authorities caught up with him Jan. 25
in Abbottabad - the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S.
commando attack four months later.
Indonesia's
anti-terrorism chief, Ansyaad Mbai, told The Associated Press it did not appear
to be a coincidence that they were in the same place.
"It's
further evidence of the link between the Southeast Asian terror network and
al-Qaida," he added, hours before the 41-year-old boarded an Indonesian
plane sent to a Pakistani air force base.
Patek
touched down outside Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, on Thursday morning and was
taken straight to a police detention center in the West Java town of Kelapa Dua
where he will await trial, he said. No date has been announced.
Indonesian
officials say Patek has confessed to playing a key role in the 2002 Bali
bombings, which killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists, including 88
Australians.
He also
admitted to making the bombs used in a string of Christmas Eve attacks on
churches in 2000 that claimed 19 lives, they say.
But because
tough anti-terror laws passed after the Bali blasts cannot be applied retroactively,
he will likely be charged with illegal possession of explosives, Mbai said.
Even though
that charge also carries a maximum penalty of death, there are concerns he
might get off easy.
Indonesia,
the nation with the most Muslims in the world, has been hit by a string of
terrorist attacks blamed on Patek's regional militant group, Jemaah Islamiyah,
but none as deadly as the Bali blasts.
A highly
praised anti-terrorism campaign in the country of 240 million has seen hundreds
of suspects arrested and convicted in recent years, but Patek is one of the
biggest to have been captured alive.
His arrest
in Abbottabad raised questions over whether he was there to meet bin Laden,
something that would challenge theories that the al-Qaida chief was cut off
from his followers.
U.S
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue, have said
it appeared to be a coincidence.
But Mbai
countered that Wednesday.
Several
other militants - from Asia and Europe to the Middle East - also were arrested
in the same region of northwest Pakistan at the time of Patek's arrest, he
said.
They had
gathered there in hopes of meeting bin Laden, but it was not clear if they'd
succeeded or were planning a new terror strike.
"Patek
was very valuable for the U.S.," Mbai said. "He helped lead
authorities to bin Laden."
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