Paul Maley | July 21, 2008
ALLEGED Bali bombings mastermind Hambali will face trial before a US military commission by the end of the year, with prosecutors saying the case against him is well advanced.
As relatives of the 88 Australians killed in the 2002 Bali attacks await the execution in Indonesia of the three men who carried out the nightclub bombings, the chief prosecutor of the US military commissions, Colonel Larry Morris, said prosecutors were on track to charge Hambali this year.Colonel Morris declined to say exactly what charges Indonesian-born Hambali would face, but he told The Australian they would include ``substantive'' and conspiracy offences.
"A substantive offence is a traditional common-law crime, such as murder, as well crimes that depict the collaboration of these individuals,'' he said.
Hambali was arrested in Thailand in 2003. In 2006, it was announced he had been moved to Guantanamo Bay where he awaits trial along with 13 other so-called high-value detainees, including alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Colonel Morris said prosecutors had yet to make a final determination about which attacks Hambali would be charged over.
Hambali is alleged to have financed the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people.
US officials also suspect him of involvement in the 2003 Jakarta Marriot bombings, and plots to attack Western missions, including the Australian high commission in Singapore.
It is claimed he was the link between al-Qa'ida and Indonesian terror group Jemaah Islamiah.
Colonel Morris said prosecutors had yet to decide if they would try Hambali separately or with three other detainees accused of conspiring with Hambali in a string of terror attacks across Southeast Asia.
But Colonel Morris's predecessor, Colonel Mo Davis, cast doubt on the progress of the Hambali trial, saying the controversial military commissions were probably doomed.
"My best guess is that their days are probably numbered ... It's become such a polarising symbol around the world that I don't know that you could ever fix it to a point where it would ever have credibility,'' Colonel Davis told The Australian.
But Colonel Davis said even if the commissions were abandoned, authorities would find another way to try Guantanamo's so-called "worst of the worst''.
"You're not going to see any of the high-value detainees walking the streets soon,'' he said.
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