Terrorists demand exchange for women hostages

A militant group claiming to have kidnapped two Indonesian women says it will free them if their government releases a Muslim cleric accused of heading an al Qaida-linked group, the Arab news station Al-Jazeera reported today.

The report could not immediately be verified.

Al-Jazeera said it had received a written statement from a group calling itself The Islamic Army in Iraq demanding the release of Abu Bakar Bashir, who has been in jail since 2002, when he was convicted for minor immigration infractions.

Prosecutors say they now plan to charge him with heading Jemaah Islamiyah, and for the bombing last year of the Jakarta JW Marriott hotel, which killed 12 people. Bashir has repeatedly denied any involvement in terrorism .

It is unclear when the two Indonesian women – Rosidah binti Anan and Rafikan binti Aming – were seized. Al-Jazeera showed footage of the pair along with two Lebanese and six Iraqi hostages on Thursday.

More than 140 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq by a range of groups, some holding them for ransom while others have set political conditions for their release. At least 26 hostages have been killed.

The Islamic Army in Iraq has also claimed responsibility for kidnapping two French journalists who disappeared with their Syrian driver on August 20.

However, Abu Bakar Bashir’s lawyer said his client did not want to be freed in exchange for the release of the two women.

Attorney Mohammed Assegaf said Bashir urged the group holding the hostgaes to free them, and quoted him as saying: “God’s warriors should not fight by taking innocent women hostages.”

“He only wants to be released by fighting in court,” the lawyer said. “Even if he is released because of this, he will walk right back into prison.”

Bashir was cleared of separate terrorism-related charges last year by a Jakarta court but was sentenced to 18 months in jail for immigration violations.

He was rearrested in April after serving his jail sentence and has remained behind bars since then.

Bashir has always denied any links to Jemaah Islamiyah.

Police blame the group for last month’s suicide attack outside the Australian Embassy that killed nine Indonesians and for the 2002 Bali bombings, which left 202 dead.

Bashir has little active support in the world’s most populous Muslim nation, but some fellow clerics and ordinary Indonesians are sympathetic to the aging cleric’s plight amid allegations that he is a victim of American pressure on Indonesia to crack down on terror.

Outgoing Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri urged the kidnappers to release the women and allow them to return to their families.

“These two (women) came to Iraq to work and provide the means of living for their families (in Indonesia),” Megawati told Al-Jazeera in an interview aired today.

“There is no political reason for kidnapping them.”