| Riduan Isamuddin (Hambali) | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 4, 1964 Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia |
| Detained at | CIA black sites, Guantanamo |
| ISN | 10019 |
| Charge(s) | No charge |
| Status | Held in extrajudicial detention |
Riduan Isamuddin also transliterated as Riduan Isamudin, Riduan Isomuddin, and Riduan Isomudin, better known by the nom de guerre Hambali, born as Encep Nurjaman, born April 4, 1964[1] (Indonesia) is the former military leader of the Indonesian terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which is linked with Al Qaeda. He is now in extrajudicial detention in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[2]
Hambali was often described as "the Osama bin Laden of Southeast Asia". Some media reports describe him as Bin Laden's lieutenant for Southeast Asian operations. Other reports describe him as an independent peer. He was highly trusted by Al Qaeda and was the main link between the two organisations. Hambali was a close friend of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who planned Operation Bojinka and the September 11 Terrorist Attacks. Hambali envisioned creating a Muslim state, in the form of an Islamic superpower (a theocracy) across Southeast Asia, with himself as its leader (Caliph). His ambition was to rule Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, and parts of the Philippines, Myanmar, and Thailand[3][4]
Receiving increasing attention in the aftermath of the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing, in which 202 people died. According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence he served as the third in command of Al Qaeda, from the 2003 capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to his own capture in 2005. [5] He was eventually apprehended in a joint operation by the CIA and Thai police. He is currently imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, after three years of CIA custody in a secret location.
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Riduan Isamuddin was born Encep Nurjaman in the rice belt of Sukamanah, a small village in Cianjur Regency, in the province of West Java, Indonesia. He was the son of a peasant farmer, and was the second of thirteen children. He first became involved with Jemaah Islamiah as a teenager. He was a diligent student at his Islamic high school, Al-Ianah. He travelled to Afghanistan in 1983 to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. During his three years as a mujahid, from 1987 to 1990, he met Osama bin Laden. Friends and family in Indonesia say they did not know of his activities overseas. His nephew Wilson Halim is also said to be a renowned budding youth terrorist in Malaysia.
His name has been transliterated into English text in several different ways over the years, including;
He returned to Cianjur for one week, before going to Malaysia, in 1991 where he met the two co-founders of JI, Abdullah Sungkar and Abubakar Bashir, who fled President Suharto's "New Order" in 1985. Nurjaman internationalized the terrorist group's activities. Nurjaman then took a new name in his permanent residence permit. He now was Riduan Isamuddin. The three lived in a housing compound in Kampung Sungai Manggis, Banting, Selangor. His nickname, Hambali, is after Hanbali, a school of religious law started by a revered Islamic imam from the 8th century.
The two co-founders sent their students to "study" in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The students actually fought the Soviets until the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan. A woman named Noralwizah Lee Abdullah had gone to Malaysia for religious schooling. She secretly married Isamuddin after meeting him at the Luqmanul Hakiem School in Ulu Tiram, Johor. The school was founded by Sungkar and Bashir.
Initially, Isamuddin struggled to make a living for his family. He switched from selling kebabs to patenting medicines. He soon disappeared from his home for weeks at a time, and he received many visitors at home. He eventually came to own a red hatchback and several cell phones. Investigators say that many calls on those cell phones were made to Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin Laden's brother in law, who had arrived back in Manila, Philippines in 1991.
After Arab visitors gave his family lots of money, he founded a shell company, Konsojaya, in June 1994. Ostensibly an import-export company trading in palm oil between Malaysia and Afghanistan, it was essentially a front company for terrorism. Wali Khan Amin Shah, who would become the financier of Operation Bojinka, was a director of Konsojaya. The company provided financial assistance to the project until it was discovered by investigators on a laptop computer after an apartment fire on January 6, 1995. Shah was arrested in the Philippines but escaped on a short order. Shah was arrested in Malaysia in December 1995. Both Shah and mastermind Ramzi Yousef, who escaped the Philippines but was arrested in Lahore, Pakistan, were extradited to the United States. They were both convicted and sentenced to life in prison for participating in the project.
Hambali's company attracted attention of investigators so his dealings went quiet for a while. He decided to preach, raise money, and recruit for his cause. He went underground in 2000 and started a wave of church-bombings in Indonesia. He always had a "hands-on" technique; he met his foot soldiers and came to them "with detailed plans, plenty of cash and two of his own bombmakers." He always fled before the bombing commenced. Meanwhile, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, Abu Bakr Bashir, was preaching jihad at his schools while denying links to Islamic militants.
Hambali planned and attended the January 2000 Al Qaeda Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Among the others present were two September 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. This gathering in Kuala Lumpur was observed by the CIA and Malaysian authorities, but what specifically was being said at the meetings was not picked up. Hambali also provided money and documents to Zacarias Moussaoui in October of that year.
After the Bali nightclub bombing, in which 202 people were killed, Hambali received more attention from the United States. In the years leading up to the attack, the Indonesian government's action against Islamic militants had been minimal. Following the attack, Abu Bakr Bashir was arrested as part of a crack down on Jemaah Islamiah. He was wanted in Indonesia[10] for the bombings of several churches in the region, and wanted for the Bali bombing and a failed plot on several targets in Singapore.
Hambali used a series of safe-houses throughout Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Cambodia, to move around. While he was in Ayutthaya, Thailand, 75 kilometers north of Bangkok, he was planning a terrorist attack against several Thai hotels and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit (APEC) in Bangkok on October 2003. Hambali had used a false Spanish passport to enter Thailand while his wife used her Malaysian passport.
Thai police found him as part of a joint operation between the Thai police and the CIA on August 11, 2003. The twenty uniformed and undercover police smashed down the door to his one bedroom apartment in Ayutthaya, and arrested him and 33-year old Noralwizah Lee Abdullah, a Chinese Malaysian who was considered to be his wife. Hambali was wearing a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a baseball cap, and a pair of sunglasses. Police also seized explosives and firearms in the property. It marked the end of a 20-month hunt for Hambali, who was 37 years of age when he was captured.
A 2006 Human Rights Watch report stated that Hambali was imprisoned in Jordan for the account of the CIA. On September 6, 2006, President George W. Bush confirmed that Hambali had been held by the CIA and revealed that he had been transferred to Guantanamo Bay.[11] His wife is now in Malaysian custody.
On September 8, 2006 Indonesia formally requested access to Hambali to ensure a fair trial.[12] The United States are reluctant to hand him over because of the lenient sentence Indonesia imposed on Bashir.
Hambali is also wanted in the Philippines for the transfer of explosives on Filipino soil in an attempt to transport them to Singapore.
Following his capture the USA would not confirm or deny that he was in their custody. But on September 6, 2006, President Bush acknowledged[13] the existence of covert, overseas CIA interrogation centres (colloquially known as black sites) and announced that 14 high-profile members al Qaeda and related groups had been transported from those sites to Guantanamo Bay.[14] Those 14 include Hambali and an alleged lieutenant of his called Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep alias Lillie or Li-Li.
The Bush administration asserted that:
Critics argued the Conventions obliged the U.S. to conduct competent tribunals to determine the status of prisoners. Subsequently, the U.S. Department of Defense instituted Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), to determine whether detainees met the new definition of an "enemy combatant".
"Enemy combatant" was defined by the U.S. Department of Defense as:
The CSRTs are not bound by the rules of evidence that would normally apply in civilian court, and the government’s evidence is presumed to be “genuine and accurate.”[17] From July 2004 through March 2005, CSRTs were convened to determine whether each prisoner had been correctly classified as an "enemy combatant".
Riduan Isamuddin was among the 60% of prisoners who chose to participate in tribunal hearings.[18] A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for the tribunal of each detainee, listing the allegations that supported their detention as an "enemy combatant".
Riduan Isamuddin's memo accused him of the following: [19]
The Department of Defense announced on August 9, 2007 that all fourteen of the "high-value detainees" who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA's black sites, had been officially classified as "enemy combatants".[20] Although judges Peter Brownback and Keith J. Allred had ruled two months earlier that only "illegal enemy combatants" could face military commissions, the Department of Defense waived the qualifier and said that all fourteen men could now face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.[21][22]
According to Xinhua the Obama Presidency is considering transferring Riduan Isamuddin to Washington DC for a civilian trial.[23]
Some of the above information about Hambali, and more, can be read in the massive report[8] of the 9-11 Commission.
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