Al-Qaida may have bankrolled Bali bombings

AL-QAIDA may have financed the Bali bomb attacks that killed 202 people, including 26 Britons, a jailed Muslim radical said yesterday at the trial of a key bombing suspect.

Wan Min Wan Mat, in prison in Malaysia, spoke via a video link at the trial of Ali Ghufron, alias Mukhlas, the alleged operations head of Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional terror group blamed for carrying out the two nightclub bombings on October 12 last year.

Ghufron is one of four top suspects currently on trial for the attacks that shattered the peace in one of the world's premier tourist destinations.

Wan Min was arrested in Malaysia in September and is being held under a security act for allegedly maintaining ties to terrorist groups.

He said that earlier in 2002 he gave 35,000 in three instalments to Ghufron who was then in Thailand.

"It was for terror attacks in Indonesia," Wan Min said. "I don't know whether it was used for Bali. From my conversations with (Ghufron), I heard that the money came from outside sources," Wan Min added. When asked by prosecutors what he meant by outside sources Wan Min replied: "Al-Qaida."

His testimony was the first linking al-Qaida as a money source with

attacks organised by Jemaah Islamiyah which is said to be seeking to set up an Islamic superstate in south-east Asia.

In the past, Indonesian police have said the Bali bombings were financed through robberies of a jeweller's shop and by donations from radical Muslims in Indonesia.

In yesterday's testimony, Wan Min said Ghufron attended meetings in Thailand to plan terror attacks in Indonesia. But that was immediately denied by Ghufron.

"Nothing happened in Thailand," he told the court. "I was just running and trying to hide (from police)."

Ghufron had earlier told a court that he was the operations chief of Jemaah Islamiyah and fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Wan Min also said that he had provided bomb-making and weapons training to Muslim militants in the Philippines.

"I stayed for two months in the Philippines to give military training and sermons on Jihad and weapons training," he told the court.

Wan Min is among scores of Islamic militant suspects detained without trial by Malaysian and Singaporean authorities and accused of involvement in plots by Jemaah Islamiyah.

Indonesian police have arrested 35 suspects in connection with the Bali bombings.

The alleged bombers have said they organised the attacks to avenge the suffering of Muslims at the hands of the United States and its allies in the Middle East.

Most of the 202 people killed in the Bali bombings were foreign tourists.