Jakarta – An Indonesian Muslim militant turned himself in to authorities on Monday after supporters had spirited him out of police custody, a prosecutor said.

Habib Rizieq, who once urged Indonesians to take over the US embassy if the United States should attack Iraq, presented himself shortly after 5pm, Mulyoharjo, head of the Jakarta attorney-general's office, told Reuters. "He was received by prosecutors," Mulyoharjo said. "His status now is prosecutors' detainee." At mid-day about 50 supporters, far outnumbering police at the scene, had pushed Rizieq from inside the prosecutor's office to a bus waiting outside.

Rizieq's Islamic Defenders' Front (FPI) has raided establishments it believed were acting against Indonesian law and Islamic principles, and tried to sign up volunteers to go to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight the United States.

Police detained him late last year over some of the raids. But local media said despite being under house arrest Rizieq left Indonesia for the Middle East this month to help resist the US-led attack, and was picked up by authorities late on Sunday upon returning to Jakarta on a flight from Malaysia.

Rizieq said he was not trying to escape when he left the country. "My trip overseas was not to escape from responsibilities. I was not escaping from the law," he told supporters and media before giving himself up.

Before the war on Iraq, Rizieq had said the FPI was "campaigning for the public to besiege and take over the US embassy if war broke out", and that if there was a war, "We will have thousands of new Osama bin Ladens who will be ready to destroy US facilities".

Prosecutors and lawyers say Rizieq faces several charges, including provocation leading to violence.

[Reporting by Telly Nathalia.]