Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who was jailed for his involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings, will be freed from prison as scheduled on June 14, his lawyer said on Tuesday after meeting jail officials.
Bashir has been in custody in Jakarta for the past four years during investigations and while serving sentences, including one for links to the bomb attacks in 2002 that killed 202 people on Indonesia's tourist island of Bali.
Indonesian and Western police believe the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah network - of which they say Bashir was the spiritual leader - was behind the Bali attacks and other terrorism strikes in Southeast Asia. Bashir, 67, denies any wrongdoing and insists Jemaah Islamiah does not exist. There has not been much international reaction to Bashir's impending release but Australian and US officials have criticised Indonesia in the past for giving him a relatively light sentence, and for subsequently reducing the term.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said in August that Australians were "outraged that this sentence has been reduced. I find it offensive and I think millions of Australians will find it offensive."
The sentence could have been cut again in November but Indonesia declined to do so, a decision Bashir's legal team blamed on pressure from Australia. Of the 202 people killed in the Bali bombings, 88 were Australian. While Bashir has not yet received his release letter, his lawyer Muhammad Ali said the necessary documents were ready.
"The release letter is already there with a June 14 date. The release time is 8 am (0100 GMT). The chief warden has signed it," he told reporters in front of Jakarta's Cipinang prison.
Bashir was arrested several days after the 2002 Bali blasts for investigations on separate crimes and later spent 18 months in jail for minor immigration offences after treason charges against him were dismissed or overturned in court.
Police rearrested him on suspected links with the Bali attacks as he was leaving the prison in April 2004. A court last year sentenced him to 30 months in jail after finding him guilty of being part of a conspiracy behind the bombings.
Following a reduction in his sentence - from remissions he received on Indonesia's 60th independence celebration in August 2005 and time served in detention - the government intends to let him become a free man.
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