JI bagman, arrested in Thailand, says he knew nothing

By BangkokPost.com, Agencies

The first accused Asian terrorist called at the Guantanamo Bay hearings admitted in a written statement he carried the money used for the 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta, but didn't know what the funds were for.

Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, a Malaysian also known as Lillie, was arrested in Thailand, deported to Singapore and transferred to the US-run camp for accused terrorists.

According to evidence presented at the hearing, Lillie travelled to Bangkok to help move $50,000 from al-Qaeda to the militant Islamic group Jemaah Islamiya and that $30,000 of it was used for operational expenses to bomb the J.W. Marriott in Jakarta on Aug. 5, 2003.

He declined to attend the US military hearing on his case, designed to to decide whether he will continue to be held.

Instead, in a written statement, he denied allegations against him, principally that he helped transfer funds for the 2003 bombing of the Jakarta hotel in which 12 were killed.

The bombing came as security forces were attempting - successfully - to secure Bangkok for the 2003 Apec summit in November of that year.

"It is true I facilitated the movement of money," Lillie said in the statement, which was read by his military representative. "[B]but I did not know what it was going to be used for. I do not know anything about a hotel bombing."

The statement by Lillie and by his personal US military representative - the rough equivalent of a defence attorney - basically denied all involvement with Jemaah Islamiyah.

"There is no way for him (Lillie) to know what the money was going to be used for," said the American officer, whose name was not disclosed. "The money changed hands and national currencies at least five times in the six months prior to the bombings."

Detainees at Guantanamo have the right to attend or to stay away from the hearings. The process is not a trial, but aims at deciding whether detainees can continue to be held. Some will be tried, possibly this year.

According to Lilie, "I have nothing to do with JI."

But he said he knew JI operations chief Hambali - a fellow prisoner at Guantanamo and also captured in Thailand in 2003.

"It is true that I facilitated the movement of money for Hambali," Lillie said in his written statement.

He also denied he lived in Bangkok. He said he was in the city "for a short period of time as a layover during my travels to Hat Yai in southern Thailand."

Thai intelligence sources, and now Lillie's own statement, have never answered the question of what Lillie was doing in southern Thailand, where he was arrested at about the same time as a Singaporean, also a JI member.

"I was at the house (in the South where he was captured) trying to make money to fund my travels to Malaysia," he said. "I stayed at that particular house becaquse there were several other Malaysians" there.

His denials were questionable. Asked why he had a military assault rifle in his Songkhla province home, Lillie claimed that, "It is not against the law in Thailand to have an M-16 in your apartment."

Bangkok Post

Saturday March 31, 2007