Jakarta – The bombing last year of the JW Marriott hotel in Indonesia's capital was inspired by Osama bin Laden, a militant who was convicted in the attack and who claims to have met the Al-Qaeda leader said yesterday."I met Osama frequently in Afghanistan and heard him speak about waging war against America and its allies," said Mohammad Rais, giving testimony in the trial of alleged terrorist leader Abu Bakar Bashir. "We saw the Marriott attack as a message from Osama," he said.
He also said Osama once invited Bashir to live in Afghanistan. "If Bashir feels no longer comfortable here [in Indonesia], Osama asked Bashir to go there," Rais told the court in reply to a question from the judge.
Bashir has been charged with heading Al-Qaeda's alleged affiliate in South-east Asia, the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) group, and of inciting his followers to take part in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, and the Marriott attack that left 12 dead.
Earlier yesterday, another militant testified that Bashir gave a speech to recruits at a southern Philippines terrorist-training camp where Muslim militants learned bombmaking. But the witness, Yudi Lukito, failed to support prosecutors assertions that Bashir incited militants to attack Western targets in the 2000 speech.
Bashir denies visiting the Philippines that year. He has voiced support for Osama as a defender of Islam, but has repeatedly denied involvement in terrorism.
Lukito, an Islamic militant serving a prison term for illegal weapons possession, told the court he had seen a white-robed Bashir at the Philippines camp in 2000.
"I saw him directly for about five to 10 minutes," he said. "He told us that as Muslims we are brothers and that we have to help Muslim brothers everywhere." Lukito said he learnt weapon-handling and bomb-making skills at the camp.
Security officials say JI used camps in the southern Philippines to train terrorist recruits.
Earlier this week, three witnesses called by the prosecution – also Islamic militants serving jail time – failed to directly implicate Bashir in any alleged crimes.
A Jakarta court last year acquitted Bashir of heading JI, which has been blamed for the Bali and Marriott bombings, and the blast in September outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta that killed 10 Indonesians. At the time, prosecutors were criticised for bungling the case.
Bashir was re-arrested and put on trial again after pressure from the United States and Australia, which have publicly accused Bashir of being a key South-east Asian terrorist.