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Alleged
Malaysian Terror Leader Denies Charges
By
Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia correspondent
JAKARTA,
Feb. 15 (Islamonline) - Alleged Malaysian terror leader and businessman Yazid
Sufaat, recently detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA), was not
associated with the Septemeber 11 terror attacks, said his lawyer Friday,
dismissing as baseless U.S. claims that Sufaat is the ring leader of a group of
extremists in southeast Asia.
Lawyer
Saiful Idzham said that according to the home ministry's ISA charge-sheet
against Sufaat, there is no mention of any September 11 links.
He
said the four-page charge-sheet only outlined Sufaat's involvement in activities
which were "prejudicial to national security."
This
clearly means that the Malaysian authorities dismiss claims made by the FBI and
U.S.-based magazines that Sufaat was the ring leader of a group of extremists in
Southeast Asia.
Sufaat
was also linked by Singaporean authorities to the underground Jemaah Islamiah.
Thirteen of its members were arrested in Singapore in December 2001 and are now
currently in jail under the ISA.
The
ISA allows detention without trial and has been criticized by rights groups
around the world as the worst anti-Human rights law in existence.
Malaysian
authorities said Sufaat was part of the underground Jemaah Islamiah which has
been fighting to set up an Islamic nation comprising Malaysia, Indonesia and
Mindanao.
Idzham,
who visited Sufaat at the Kamunting Detention Camp in Perak, Malaysia Friday,
February 8, said his client denied the allegations in the charge-sheet.
"He
is now drafting an affidavit to reply to those allegations," Idzham said.
Sufaat
rejected allegations that he was a member of the Malaysian Mujahidin Movement
(KMM), adding that the KMM and the Jemaah Islamiah do not exist.
He
added that he knew many of the other 22 ISA detainees rounded up by police since
December 9, 2001 "through a registered Islamic society and also through
religious classes" in which they participated, Malaysiakini.com reported
Friday, February 15.
In
January 2002, U.S.-based international Magazine Newsweek claimed that the FBI
had proof of the links between Sufaat and the terror suspects of the 911
attacks.
U.S.
authorities urged the Malaysian government to extradite Sufaat to the U.S.,
claiming he was a key element in the Al-Qaeda network.
The
U.S. blames Al-Qaeda of having orchestrated the September 11 attacks on New York
and outside Washington.
According
to the FBI, Sufaat had appointed French Moroccan Zacarias Moussaoui as a
software company's marketing representative in the U.S. Moussaoui was charged in
the U.S. in December for conspiring with the Al-Qaeda.
The
FBI also claimed Sufaat had met with two terrorist suspects before they hijacked
the two jetliners and crashed them into New York's World Trade Center September
11.
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