Indonesia to free terror convict Bashir this month

JAKARTA, June 6 (Reuters) Jailed hardline Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir will become a free man this month after completing a prison sentence over his involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings, Indonesia's justice minister today said.

Bashir, seen by Western countries as the spiritual leader of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah regional militant network, was convicted of being part of a conspiracy behind the bombings that killed 202 people on the resort island.

''Based on law, he must be freed on June 14,'' Justice Minister Hamid Awaluddin told reporters, adding nobody had raised objections.

Southeast Asian and Western authorities blame Jemaah Islamiah for the Bali attacks and other terrorist strikes in the region.

Bashir was arrested several days after the 2002 Bali blasts for investigations on separate crimes and later spent 18 months in jail for minor immigration offences after treason charges against him were dismissed or overturned in court.

Police rearrested him over suspected links with Bali attacks as he was leaving the prison in April 2004. A court last year sentenced him to 30 months in jail after finding him guilty of being part of a conspiracy behind the bombings.

Following a reduction in his sentence from remissions he received on Indonesia's 60th independence celebration in August 2005 and time served in detention, supporters are waiting for Bashir's imminent release.

Bashir, co-founder of an Islamic school in Central Java, denies any wrongdoing and insists Jemaah Islamiah does not exist. Police say Jemaah Islamiah has become decentralised, with some factions splitting off and operating independently.

SUICIDE BOMBER Officials add that despite the capture of nearly 300 people suspected of violating anti-terrorism laws, violent militants remain a serious threat in Indonesia, a vast archipelago with 17,000 islands and 220 million people.

Earlier today, an Islamic militant confessed in a Bali court that he had offered to become a suicide bomber before another terror strike on the island last year, when three suicide bombers killed 20 people in a beachside restaurant.

Anif Solchanuddin, who prosecutors say underwent training to become a suicide bomber but was replaced at the last minute, told the Denpasar court: ''I once offered myself to become a bomber.'' ''Two days after the Bali bombing, I was asked whether I still wanted to become a suicide bomber,'' Solchanuddin said when he testified today in a trial against another defendant, Abdul Aziz, who is accused of setting up a militant Web site.

Asked by a member of the three-judge panel how he replied, the former mobile telephone salesman said: ''I was in doubt over the definition of jihad''.

Some say jihad means simply ''struggle'' in Arabic but others contend it refers specifically to holy war.

The reason why Solchanuddin did not become a suicide bomber in the 2005 Bali attacks remains unclear.

He is also accused of delivering bombs to one of Southeast Asia's top fugitives, Noordin Top, after the blasts.

Four men are being prosecuted over the 2005 attack and could face the death penalty if convicted.

REUTERS DKS KN1520