Umar Patek Arrived in Jakarta

ISLAMABAD, KOMPAS.com — A key suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings arrived in the Indonesian capital on Thursday after Pakistani authorities extradited him more than six months after he was captured in Pakistan's northwest, officials said.

Umar Patek allegedly built the bombs used in the suicide attacks on Bali nightclubs that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists. Patek, an Indonesian national, had a $1 million bounty on his head when he was captured in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad on Jan. 25, four months before Osama bin Laden was killed there in a U.S. commando attack.

Indonesia sent a plane Wednesday to pick up the 41-year-old Patek from a Pakistani air force base just outside the capital, Islamabad, said a Pakistani intelligence official. The extradition was confirmed by senior Pakistani security and government officials.

Patek arrived in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday morning, an Indonesian anti-terrorism official said. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Indonesian anti-terrorism chief Ansyaad Mbai told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Patek would stand trial in Indonesia. Indonesian officials say Patek has confessed to playing a role in the 2002 Bali bombings, but have nevertheless expressed concern over whether they will be able to ensure a conviction.

One potential problem is that he may not be able to be tried under anti-terror laws passed after the Bali blasts because they cannot be applied retroactively.

Patek's arrest in Abbottabad has raised questions over whether he was in the town to meet bin Laden, something that would challenge theories that the al-Qaida chief was cut of from his followers. U.S officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue, have said that his arrest in Abbottabad was a coincidence.