KUALA LUMPUR – After 15 years at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, suspects in the November 2002 Bali bombings, including two Malaysians, are getting their day in court tomorrow.
Malaysian duo Mohammed Nazir Lep and Mohammed Farik Amin have been detained at the United States prison in Cuba since 2006, alongside Indonesian Encep Nurjaman, also known as Hambali and “the Osama of Southeast Asia”, who is said to be the attack mastermind, reported BenarNews.
All three are to be indicted at the US naval station at Guantanamo on charges linked to the blasts that killed 202 people, as well as the August 2003 assault on the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that claimed 12 lives.
A charge sheet uploaded by the US Office of Military Commissions showed that the Malaysians face nine charges, and Hambali, eight, in relation to their alleged roles in the terrorist attacks.
All three will be charged with conspiracy, attempted murder, murder, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, terrorism, destruction of property, and attacking civilians and civilian objects.
The charges do not carry the death penalty.
The trio were arrested in Thailand in August 2003 and sent to a secret CIA prison network before being moved to Guantanamo in September 2006.
The Malaysians were also implicated in an al-Qaeda plot to crash a hijacked plane into the 73-storey US Bank Tower, also known as the Library Tower, in Los Angeles.
Hambali has been described as “an operational mastermind for Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant group affiliated with al-Qaeda”.
He was among those responsible for organising the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US. – The Vibes, August 29, 2021
