| |
| |
 |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
WASHINGTON: Hambali, the alleged Bali bomb mastermind who is suspected of links to Al-Qaeda, filed a petition Thursday seeking his release from Guantanamo where he has been detained for more than three years.
Considered the operational chief of Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) until his capture in Thailand in 2003, Hambali, whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, filed a habeas petition with the US District Court in Washington.
Hambali, accused of plotting the October 2002 attack in Bali that killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists, was held for three years in secret CIA prisons before being transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006.
In addition to the Bali bombing he is thought to have raised funds from Al-Qaeda, with whom he has denied any links, for the 2003 attack on the Marriott hotel in Jakarta that left 12 people dead.
JI has long been suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, which was behind the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States that killed close to 3,000 people, most in New York.
Hambali allegedly headed JI until late 2002. He was arrested in Thailand in August 2003 and handed over to US authorities, who are currently detaining him at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The US also accuses Hambali of orchestrating and funding an attack on an Indonesian church on Christmas Eve 2000 that left 18 dead, and of plotting attacks on the embassies of the US, Britain and Australia in Singapore.
In a major setback for the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled in June 2008 that detainees being held without charge at Guantanamo enjoy the constitutional right of habeas corpus, which allows them to challenge their detention.
- AFP/sc
|
