JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Abu Bakar Bashir, a radical cleric linked to the deadly Bali bombings, was freed from a prison near the Indonesian capital Jakarta early Friday, prison authorities said.
“He was handed over to his family and a team of lawyers who came to pick him up at the penitentiary,” national prisons spokeswoman Rika Aprianti said in a statement.
Bashir, 82, had completed his jail term for helping fund militant training in conservative Aceh province, but he has long been suspected of involvement in the 2002 holiday island bombings, Indonesia’s worst terror attack.
© Agence France-Presse
