The controversy over the announced early release of firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, and then subsequent government backtracking on, is likely to continue for some time even after the government essentially confirmed that it wasn’t going to happen yesterday.
One remaining source of controversy is the suggestion that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s objection to the release of Bashir — who was once found guilty for his involvement in the deadly 2002 Bali Bombing that killed 88 Australians — was what led President Joko Widodo to cancel plans for the elderly cleric’s early release.
The president’s chief of staff, Moeldoko, addressed the claim today and denied that the government’s decision on Bashir’s release had anything to do with pressure from Australia.
“This is just made up. We are a sovereign state, how could we be pressured on this? Really, who is Australia?” Moeldoko said at the Presidential Palace Complex in Jakarta today as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
Moeldoko also stressed that, in fact, no final decision on Bashir’s release had yet been taken by the president. He said that all of the previous news regarding the early release of Bashir had come from Yusril Ihza Mahendra, a legal advisor to Jokowi’s campaign, but that his statements did not constitute official government decisions.
“Those were just one-sided statements from Pak Yusril, there has not been an official decision. So many misinterpret it, as if that was the final decision of the president,” he said.
President Jokowi spoke about Bashir’s planned release for the first time yesterday, when he reiterated that the firebrand cleric had to meet certain requirements to be given early release, including signing a pledge of allegiance to the Unitary State of Indonesia (NKRI) and the state ideology of Pancasila. President Jokowi said he was not willing to “collide with the mechanisms of law” to ensure Bashir’s release.
Also yesterday, Moeldoko said that Bashir refused to sign the loyalty pledge and there was no way for the cleric to be released without meeting that requirement.
Last week, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, legal advisor to President Jokowi’s re-election campaign, said that Bashir was set to be released from prison after having received early parole with the express permission of President Jokowi.
Yusril said that President Jokowi supported Bashir’s early release on humanitarian grounds, considering that the 80-year-old Bashir is aging and requires special medical care in prison. Yusril admitted that Bashir refused to sign a loyalty pledge to the state but claimed that Jokowi was willing to give an exemption to the cleric — a claim that now seems to have been clearly false.
Bashir is known for being the spiritual leader to Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional terror group blamed for the deadly 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202 people, but his conviction in relation to that act of terrorism was overturned on appeal. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2011 for providing support to a terrorist training camp in Aceh.
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