Indonesian police postponed plans to question jailed Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir as a terrorism suspect after he and his lawyers complained that the summons was legally flawed.
"Allahu Akbar!" (God is greatest) shouted about 50 supporters of the elderly cleric Monday as police announced the delay outside Jakarta's Salemba prison.
"Fight American intervention," read posters displayed by members of the Islamic Defenders Front and other supporters from the Javanese city of Solo. "Drag and hang Bush," read one placard.
Bashir, 65, is due to be freed on Friday after serving a sentence for immigration offences. But this is uncertain after police formally declared him a terrorism suspect.
The United States and other foreign governments say Bashir led the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah – the group blamed for the Bali nightclub bombings of October 2002, in which 202 people died, and for a string of other deadly attacks.
Hardline and some mainstream Islamic groups say police are being pressured by the United States to keep the cleric behind bars.
Mohammad Assegaf, a lawyer for Bashir, said a police officer visited the jail earlier Monday to try to serve a summons. But they rejected it since it was only issued Sunday night. He said that by law police must submit a summons three days before a planned interrogation.
Had they allowed Bashir to be taken to national police headquarters for interrogation, investigators might have continued detaining him till Friday, he told reporters. "On that day they could issue a new arrest warrant," said Assegaf, who insisted that his client has the right to walk free on Friday.
National police spokesman Bashir Barmawi said police plan to question Bashir sometime this week and would only determine his status afterwards.
"We have not yet decided on anything. We will first interrogate him, demand information and the result of the interrogation will determine what will be his status after the 30th [Friday]," Barmawi said. Last week Bashir promised to cooperate with the police investigation as long as they did not try to keep him in jail during the inquiry.
"If I am detained, I will refuse to be questioned by police because my detention will only please America because they intend to make an enemy of Islam," he said.
An appeal court quashed Bashir's original conviction for involvement with a Jemaah Islamiyah plot but police now say they have new evidence.
A spokesman for the Indonesian Mujahideen Council, which Bashir heads and which campaigns for Islamic law, told AFP the police were disregarding court decisions. "What they are doing is clearly an insult and they are being pressured by the United States. Our police have become lackeys of the US," he said.