Bali bomb accused claims police torture

A man accused of last year’s Bali bombings told a court today that police had threatened him with torture unless he admitted he attended religious teachings by Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual head of terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.

Amrozi bin Nurhasyim also said he witnessed police torture his older brother Ali Guhfron, alias Mukhlas, who is also charged in connection with the October 12 blasts that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Police immediately denied both accusations.

“We have proof that he (Amrozi) was never under pressure and was accompanied by lawyers during interrogations,” said police spokesman Brigadier General Edward Aritonang.

Amrozi made the remarks in evidence at the trial of Bashir, who is accused of treason and a series of church bombings in 2002.

Prosecutors, quoting from police investigation notes, said Amrozi once stated that he attended religious instruction classes taught by Bashir in Malaysia.

“I made that up because I had seen in front of my own eyes police seriously torturing Mukhlas,” Amrozi told the court.

“I was threatened by investigators that if I didn’t talk then the torture would be more serious than those people arrested in Malaysia and Singapore.”

There have been no allegations that Singapore and Malaysia have tortured any of the scores of Muslim militants that both countries have arrested over the last year.

Amrozi’s testimony is likely to further weaken the prosecution case against Bashir. Several other prosecution witnesses have failed to link the 64-year-cleric with terror activities in the region.

Indonesia says Bashir is the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah, which foreign intelligence agencies say is linked to al-Qaida. The group has been blamed for several failed terror plots in the region and several explosions, including the Bali bombings.

In February, lawyers for Imam Samudra, the alleged mastermind of the Bali attacks, also accused police of torturing their client to implicate Bashir in terrorism.

Bashir has denied all wrongdoing and says Jemaah Islamiyah does not exist. His arrest in the days after the Bali blasts came amid intense international pressure to crack down on militant Islam.