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Cleric Tied to Bali Bombings Leaves Prison

Abu Bakar Bashir, alleged leader of the radical Islamic group Jemaah Islamiyah, speaks to journalists after being freed from a jail in Jakarta.
Jewel Samad
/
AFP/Getty Images
Abu Bakar Bashir, alleged leader of the radical Islamic group Jemaah Islamiyah, speaks to journalists after being freed from a jail in Jakarta.

Abu Bakar Bashir, a militant Islamic cleric, walks out of an Indonesian prison after serving 26 months for conspiracy in the deadly 2002 Bali bombings. He is reputed to be a key member of the terrorist group key member of the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.

Many legal observers say evidence linking Bashir to the bombings was weak. The blasts killed 202 people on the Indonesia island, many of them Australian tourists. The group Jemaah Islamiyah is accused of a bombing campaign across Indonesia that has claimed more than 260 lives since 2000.

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Michael Sullivan is NPR's Senior Asia Correspondent. He moved to Hanoi to open NPR's Southeast Asia Bureau in 2003. Before that, he spent six years as NPR's South Asia correspondent based in but seldom seen in New Delhi.