Indonesian prosecutors' bid to link a radical Muslim cleric to bomb attacks suffered another setback when a key witness withdrew a confession tying the militant to a regional extremist group.
Convicted terrorist Imron Baehaqi denied earlier claims he had seen Abu Bakar Bashir at a Philippine terrorist training camp and said he could not confirm the religious teacher was head of the Jemaah Islamiyah organisation.
Prosecutors want to tie the 66-year-old to the group blamed for the October 2002 Bali bombings in which 202 people died, as well as an August 2003 attack on the Jakarta Marriott hotel and the recent bombing of the Australian embassy.
He is on trial for inciting followers to carry out the Bali bombings and plotting the Marriott strike in which 12 people died. If convicted he faces a maximum death penalty.
But a series of convicted terrorists brought to court as star prosecution witnesses have all denied knowledge that Bashir was involved in Jemaah Islamiyah.
The latest, Baehaqi, said he had heard second-hand that the cleric had been named head of the organisation following the demise of its co-founder Abdullah Sungkar in 1999.
However he said he had abandoned efforts to verify the appointment when he learned that Bashir had been made chairman of a new organisation, the Indonesian Council of Mujahedin.
The witness also withdrew an earlier statement made to the police in which he said he had seen Bashir during a religious ceremony at an Islamic militant training camp on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.
"I revoke that statement because it was made when, at the time, I was unfit ... I never saw Ustadz [teacher] Abu Bakar Bashir at the ceremony in Moro," he said, referring to the Philippine rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Prosecutors say Bashir, as head of Jemaah Islamiyah, visited the training camp in April 2000 and relayed a "ruling from Osama bin Laden which permitted attacks and killings of Americans and their allies." Bashir was cleared last year by an Indonesian court of leading Jemaah Islamiyah, which seeks to create an Islamic fundamentalist state in Southeast Asia, but police say they have new evidence of his leadershop role.
The cleric was arrested a week after the Bali blasts and has remained in detention ever since. Prosecutors have said in their indictment that he orchestrated the Marriott bombing from his cell.
Bashir has described the indictment as "legal fiction" and said he had nothing to gain from acts of terrorism since they would only fuel interference in Indonesia by Washington. Foreign governments, who view Bashir as a major threat, are keen to see a conviction.