Bali mastermind was known to Australian security

The alleged mastermind of the Bali bombings was known to Australian security agents as an extremist leader who might be planning terror attacks, an intelligence official said today.

Bill O’Malley, a senior analyst with Australia’s Office of National Assessments, told a Senate inquiry that Imam Samudra was known to his agency before the October 12 bombings.

“Yes, we did know some of the people whom we later found out to be implicated in the Bali bombings,” he said in Canberra.

Asked if he could name any, O’Malley said: “I believe one is Imam Samudra.”

The ONA immediately issued a clarifying statement saying Samudra had not been named in a written report given to the government on October 10.

Samudra, now on trial in Bali, is accused of recruiting many of the suspects, planning the attack and raising funds for it.

The bombings killed 202 people in a busy nightclub district on the tropical Indonesian island.