Abu Bakar Bashir: Indonesia reviewing decision to release Bali bombing mastermind

Abu Bakar Bashir’s hopes of freedom have hit a political roadblock with Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo after Scott Morrison called for him to stay behind bars.

The release of Indonesian terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir has been postponed on the grounds that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has sought more time to understand the full implications of freeing the ailing cleric.

Bashir, 81, was expected to be released from a prison in Bogor, south of Jakarta, this morning, but late yesterday Wiranto, who heads the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal and Security, said more time was needed to review the decision.

President Jokowi made the shock announcement that Bashir would be freed while on the campaign trail last week, supposedly at the request of his family.

However, Wiranto said the President had temporarily put the brakes on the move and “has ordered related officials to immediately conduct a deeper and comprehensive assessment to respond the request.”

Abu Bakar Bashir had previously been considered ineligible for parole because of his refusal to renounce radical beliefs. Picture: AP Photo/Irwin Fedriansyah

Bashir is the founder of terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah, responsible for multiple bomb attacks across Indonesia over the last 20 years, most devastatingly the attack on Bali nightclubs of October 12, 2002, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians.

Bashir, who has served only nine of 15 years for organising a terror training camp in Aceh, was set to be released on humanitarian grounds by President Widodo, in what many interpret as a ploy to appease Islamic hardliners in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Widodo is facing a presidential election and appeared to try to soften the release this week of his ally, former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja “Ahok” Purnama, a Christian who was accused of blaspheming Islam and jailed in 2017.

Ahok has become a touchstone for Islamist ire and it was seen as a political gambit by

Scott Morrison said Bashir should serve his full sentence. Picture: Saeed Khan/AFP

Jokowi to get Bashir out of prison ahead of Ahok, to calm the hardliners.

Indonesian media reports that Bashir had not directly applied for a presidential pardon or conditional release, which makes Jokowi’s decision the more extraordinary.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke for the surprise and disappointment of Australians that the murderous preacher was to be released.

“Australians died horrifically on that night, and I think Australians everywhere would be expecting that this matter was treated with the utmost seriousness by our government, which it is,” he said.

“But also that the Indonesian government would show great respect for Australia in how they manage this issue.”

It is doubtful Mr Morrison’s comments would have had any influence on President Jokowi’s decision to hold fire on Bashir’s release.

The wreckage of the Sari nightclub pictured in 2002. More than 200 people were killed in the Bali bombings. Picture: AP/Achmad Ibrahim

Eighty-eight of the more than 200 people killed in the 2002 bombings of Bali nightclubs were Australians and Canberra has previously urged against leniency for Bashir.

“We have been consistent always - governments of both persuasions, over a long period of time - about our concerns about Abu Bakar Bashir,” Mr Morrison said.

“He should serve what the Indonesian justice system has delivered to him as his sentence.”

Mr Morrison said it was not uncommon for prisoners who have served two-thirds of their Indonesian prison sentences to get parole.

“But we have been very clear about the need to ensure that as part of our joint counter-terrorism efforts - we have an excellent counter-terrorism partnership with Indonesia - that Abu Bakar Bashir would not be in any position or in any way able to influence or incite anything,” he said.

“Let’s not forget that Bali bombing led to the deaths of Indonesians as well.”