Mohammad Hasan bin Saynudin
I wonder what vocation, rank and from SAF, SCDF
or SPF did he did his
NS...
Singaporean who met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan confessed
Tuesday to plotting attacks against Singapore's Changi Airport and
a US navy logistics centre there, as he stood trial on separate
terror charges in Indonesia.
"We did plan to attack Changi airport in 2000 and Sembawang naval
base in 1999, but our plan was foiled by the authorities," Mohammad
Hasan bin Saynudin, 35, told AFP from his cell at South Jakarta
district court.
Hasan also said he was the ringleader of an alleged terror cell
rounded up in Sumatra in the middle of last year and charged under
Indonesia's anti-terror laws.
The alleged member of Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah
said he had been inspired by Al-Qaeda leader bin Laden and wanted
to follow his example of "waging war against America".
"In 2000 I went for military training in Afghanistan where I met
Osama a few times while he was lecturing and giving his ideology on
waging war against America," he said.
Wearing a white turban and looking relaxed as he sat cross-legged
in his cell, Hasan said it was permissible to kill
innocent people.
"This is a war against America and its allies. As long as
the Americans pay tax to their government, they are supporting
America" and can be justifiably killed, he said.
Hasan and seven other members of the 10-man group on trial here are
facing death sentences for crimes including the murder of a
Christian teacher and a plot to attack a cafe frequented by Western
backpackers.
He admitted to all the charges, saying the group had not gone
through with the bomb plot against Cafe Bedudel in October, 2007
out of concern for Muslim lives.
"We planned to bomb Cafe Bedudel in Bukittinggi (West Sumatra) but
on the day itself a woman tourist guide entered the cafe. She was
wearing a Muslim headscarf so we cancelled the plan," he
said.
"We're not blood-sucking Draculas. At all costs, Muslims should not
be sacrificed," he said, adding however that Muslims could
be killed as "collateral damage".
His group allegedly shot dead Christian teacher Dago Simamora in
June 2007 and planned to kill two Christian priests in Jakarta in
August 2006.
Hasan said Simamora, who was shot while riding his
motorbike with his child in Palembang, South Sumatra, had provoked
the attack by not allowing female Muslim students to wear Islamic
headscarves.
Pulling the trigger of an imaginary pistol, he said he was ready to
face death as a "martyr" if convicted.
"It's my dream to die as a martyr. It's every Muslim's dream," he
said, echoing three Islamists executed in Indonesia late last year
for their roles in the Bali bombings that killed more than 200
people in 2002.
A lawyer for Hasan and three other alleged members of his cell
earlier Tuesday told the South Jakarta district court they had not
intended to spread terror and should be tried under criminal
law.
Indonesia's tough anti-terror law criminalises acts such as
spreading fear to cause terror and being a member of a terrorist
group, which are not covered by the criminal act.
The 10 alleged cell members were arrested in Palembang in late June
and early July last year.
Police say they are linked to some of Southeast Asia's most wanted
terror suspects, including Mas Selamat bin Kastari, the alleged
leader of Jemaah Islamiyah in Singapore who fled detention there
last year and remains at large.
Hasan told AFP he did not know where Mas Selamat was.
Singaporean authorities have previously said that Jemaah Islamiyah
members including Mas Selamat planned to crash a plane into Changi
Airport in 2001.
The US Navy's Sealift Logistics Command Far East centre at
Sembawang Wharves, Singapore, is a logistical post for the US 7th
Fleet.
- AFP /ir