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A radical cleric linked to the Bali attacks has been released from an Indonesian prison.
Abu Bakar Bashir, 82, is the former leader of Jemaah Islamiyah – an al-Qaeda-linked group responsible for the 2002 attack on the popular holiday island.
Two bombings killed 202 people – many of them foreign tourists – with 28 Britons and 88 Australians among the dead.
Bashir has denied any connection to the incident and Indonesian authorities have struggled to prove his involvement.
Instead, he was jailed in 2011 for funding a training camp for Islamic activists in the religiously conservative province of Aceh and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
After receiving periodic reductions in his prison sentence, the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights said he has now served his sentence.
On Friday he was handed over to his family who live in central Java.
“I just want to keep my dad from being in the crowd during the coronavirus pandemic,” Bashir’s son Abdul Rohim said.
“He would only be resting and reuniting with his family until the epidemic is over, there will certainly be no other activities on his part.”
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called Bashir’s release “heartbreaking”.
Police said they would continue to monitor Bashir’s activities, but some are still concerned about his enduring influence on extremists.
Thiolina Marpaung, an Indonesian woman injured in the 2002 attacks, said: “We don’t know what he was doing in prison.
“The government has yet to assert its control over the terrorist actors in Indonesia who have been released from prison.”
Following the Bali attack, and with the support of Australia and the United States, Indonesia set up an elite counterterrorism unit which weakened Jemaah Islamiyah and resulted in the arrest or to the death of dozens of suspected militants.
But other extremist groups have since formed and carried out attacks.
Bashir was transferred from solitary confinement on a maximum security penitentiary island off Java to Gunung Sindur Prison in 2016 for age and health reasons, and has been hospitalized several times due to deterioration of his health.
President Joko Widodo almost granted a request for early release in 2019 on humanitarian grounds, but toppled after protests from the Australian government as well as relatives of the victims of the Bali bombings.
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