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| Southeast Asia |
| University Lecturer Bali Bagman |
| 2002-12-10 |
| BRITISH-trained lecturer Wan Min's specialty was construction science at a top Malaysia university, but he received honours in murder and destruction in Bali, according to police.The Manchester University-trained engineering expert has been named as the bagman for the Bali bombing. Police say he sent money to the Indonesian terrorists to finance the October 12 attack. An investigation found that Wan Min Wan Mat, 42, trained in al-Qaeda camps and helped to establish a Malaysian school frequented by Jemaah Islamiah operatives, including the organisation's spiritual leader, Abu Bakir Bashir, and al-Qaeda operations manager Hambali. JI's A-Team. He was arrested in Malaysia less than two weeks before the Bali bombing on suspicion of terrorist activity but police are refusing to say if he gave any clue about the impending JI attack in Bali. Officials believe the Malaysian sent the equivalent of $53,000 to help Mukhlas, the leader of the Indonesia terror cell, undertake the Bali bombing, which killed nearly 200 people, including 85 Australians. The instruction to send the money is believed to have come from regional al-Qaeda chief Hambali, alias Riduan Ismuddin -- one of the world's most wanted terrorists, who helped the September 11 hijackers. The chief of the Bali investigation team, Inspector General Made Pastika, said Indonesian police were keen to talk to Wan Min to find out how the money was passed to the Indonesian terrorists. "We don't know how the money was transferred, that's why we want to question him," he said. General Pastika said a team of Indonesian detectives would travel to Malaysia to interview Wan Min, who was implicated by the testimony of Mukhlas. "Pack your truncheons, we've got another interview." At the time of his arrest Wan Min was described by Malaysian national security chief Norian Mai as one of the leaders of JI in Malaysia. Police arrested the father of four after he secretly tried to visit his family in Kotu Bahru, a Malaysian city close to the Thai border, on September 27. These guys seem to be real family types, just wait outside the old family homestead and they show up sooner or later. He had been on the run since January after the Malaysian Government took into custody a group of his academic associates because of their connection with local terrorist movement Kampulis Mujiheddin Malaysia, or KMM. The town where he was arrested is close to where Hambali was reported to have discussed terror activities with a number of other JI or al-Qaeda operatives who fled after the January crackdown by the Malaysian Government. Police are hunting eight of Wan Min's alleged terror cell members. The Herald Sun has learned that Wan Min was alleged to have juggled his terrorist lifestyle with his other job as a senior lecturer at the Malaysian University of Technology, about 14km from Johor Bahru in Malaysia's far south. At the same time he was instrumental in establishing and operating a JI-associated school, known as Luqmanul Hakiem, about 40 minutes' drive from the university. Numerous terrorists frequented the school and some pupils were members of the Bali bombing cell. He's a major player, nice to have him where we can "talk" to him at length. Intelligence sources have claimed that Wan Min paid the school's water bill and oversaw the school's establishment, according to reports in the local paper the Malay Mail. Terrorism experts this week said the Malaysian University of Technology had provided fertile ground for recruiting extremists. Young impressionable minds ready to be molded into killers. |
| Posted by:Steve |