Australia PM: release of Bashir 'gut-wrenching'

Australia's prime minister said the release of Abu Bakar Bashir, a convicted firebrand cleric who inspired the Bali bombers and other violent extremists, was "gut-wrenching." Bashir walked free from an Indonesian prison Friday after completing his sentence for funding the training of Islamic terrorists.

"We have always called for those who were involved, not just I as prime minister, my predecessors of all political persuasions, to face tougher, proportionate and just sentences in these cases. Decisions on sentencing though, as we know, are a matter for the Indonesian justice system and we have to respect the decisions that they take," Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

The 2002 bombings on the tourist island of Bali that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, including 88 Australians. "That doesn't make it any easier for any Australian to accept that, ultimately. That those who are responsible for the murder of Australians would now be free. It's sometimes not a fair world. And that's one of the hardest things to deal with," he added.

Police said they would continue to monitor the activities of Abu Bakar Bashir, who is now 82 and ailing, and his son said Bashir for now would be avoiding activities outside his family due to the coronavirus pandemic. Bashir was imprisoned in 2011 for his links to a militant training camp in the religiously conservative Aceh province. He was convicted of funding the military-style camp to train Islamic militants and sentenced to 15 years in jail.

Bashir has accumulated 55 months of sentence reductions, which are often granted to prisoners on major holidays, such as Independence Day, religious holiday exemptions and illness, said Rika Aprianti, the spokesperson for the corrections department at the Justice Ministry. The slender, white-bearded Bashir, an Indonesian of Yemeni descent, was the spiritual leader of the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network behind the 2002 bombings. 

(Image Credits: AP)