Indon blast suspect admits training in Mindanao camp

JAKARTA (AFP) — An Indonesian accused of helping to bomb a McDonald’s restaurant testified at his trial here yesterday that he received weapons training in the Philippines.

Usman Nur Appan is one of 13 people on trial for the Dec. 4 blast that killed three people including a bomber at the restaurant in Makassar city on south Sulawesi island.

"He did not say who trained him. He just said he trained in Moro," chief prosecutor Muhammad Arifin Ghani told AFP from Makassar.

The accused said he learned how to make bombs and guns at a camp in the southern Philippines, Ghani said.

Four other accused in the McDonald’s case have also admitted being members of the Laskar Jundullah Islamic militia and receiving similar training there, he said.

Appan is charged under Indonesia’s anti-terror regulations.

At the separate trial in Jakarta of Abu Bakar Bashir, witnesses have testified that members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network trained in the southern Philippines at Camp Abubakar, which was operated by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Witnesses have testified that Bashir leads the JI network, which police have blamed for last October’s Bali bombings and other attacks in Indonesia.

Bashir is not charged with the Bali bombings but is accused of treason for his alleged efforts to set up an Islamic state.

The Philippine government and the MILF on Friday agreed to a ceasefire and both sides are expected to meet for talks, mediated by Malaysia, in coming weeks.

Talks are aimed at entering the MILF’s 25-year-old guerrilla campaign for an Islamic state in the southern part of the majority Roman Catholic country.