Morrison’s plea for terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir to stay locked up

Scott Morrison has urged Joko Widodo to ‘show great respect to Australia’ in dealing with terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir.

Bill McNeil, of Forster in NSW, continues to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder since the Bali bombings in 2002. Picture: Lindsay Moller

Scott Morrison has urged Indonesian President Joko Widodo to “show great respect to Australia” in dealing with terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir, as survivors of the 2002 Bali bombings describe being “disappointed and numb” at the pending release of the spiritual leader of the Islamist group that killed 88 Australians.

The Prime Minister said yesterday Bashir should serve out his full prison sentence after Mr Joko agreed to unconditionally pardon and ­release the firebrand cleric.

Bashir’s lawyers last night said he would be released tomorrow, a day before the former Jakarta governor convicted of blasphemy is set to walk free, sparking accusations the timing is politically motivated and aimed at placating conservative Muslims ahead of an April presidential election.

The 81-year-old cleric has served nine years of a 15-year jail term for his role in setting up a paramilitary training camp in ­Indonesia’s Aceh province.

Bashir, who pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2014, has been pardoned despite not being ­eligible for parole because he ­refuses to sign a letter of loyalty to the Indonesian state.

In a hardening of his comments since the weekend, Mr Morrison said Australians died “horrifically on that night” when Jemaah Islamiah terrorists ­detonated two massive bombs outside Bali nightclubs.

Abu Bakar Bashir.

“We have been consistent ­always — governments of both persuasions over a long period of time — about our concerns about Abu Bakar Bashir and that he should serve what the Indonesian justice system has delivered to him as his sentence,” Mr Morrison said.

“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.”

Gold Coast man Glen Forster, who became deaf in one ear ­because of the attack, said Bashir’s release was a “slap in the face” to Australian victims and families.

“It’s terrible for the families of the people who didn’t make it back and also us survivors — he’s a horrible person and he doesn’t deserve to be released,” the 51-year-old said. “(The news of Bashir’s release) brings it back … I feel sorry for the people that didn’t make it back and their families that they have to endure this lunatic getting out of jail.”

Bill McNeil, 43, of Forster in NSW, said he still lived with post-traumatic stress disorder because of the bombing. “I was dis­appointed and numb (about Bashir’s ­release), and it seems sort of crazy (the Indonesian authorities) will execute people for drug offences but allow this guy to go free when he has caused so much mayhem and suffering,” Dr McNeil said.

Mr Joko’s chief of staff, Moeldoko, said yesterday the Indonesian leader’s “commitment to fight terrorism and radicalism has not changed … We have been analysing the pluses and minuses of releasing Bashir for some time now. Every risk has been calculated. We will continue to monitor him and we will not give him the ­opportunity to spread radicalism.”

Opposition acting foreign ­affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus described Bashir as “a despicable terrorist criminal” who inspired people to “carry out cowardly acts of murder”, but he said Indonesia had its own judicial processes.

“It is critical that Bashir is never allowed to cause harm to others again, and this needs to continue to be a priority objective of Australia’s security engagement with Indo­nesia,” Mr Dreyfus said.

Bashir’s likely release tomorrow — before former Jakarta governor and Joko loyalist Basuki Tjahaja “Ahok” Purnama is to be released from jail — solves a ­dilemma for a moderate President unpopular with Islamists as he faces an April poll likely to be coloured by Islamic politics.

Last month, the Islamist 212 Brotherhood drew a crowd of at least 300,000 into Jakarta to mark the anniversary of the December 2016 rally in which more than half a million people gathered to pray for the blasphemy prosecution and jailing of the city’s then Christian, ethnic-Chinese governor Ahok.

Mr Joko’s campaign adviser, former Indonesian justice minister and constitutional law professor Yusril Ihza Mahendra, yesterday denied Bashir’s pardon was designed to win the votes of conservative Muslims, or that the timing was anything other than coincidental.

“(Bashir) is old and sick. Ever since he first fell ill and was hospitalised more than a year ago, we have been thinking about letting him go,” Mr Yusril said.

Additional reporting: Sascha O’Sullivan