Hambali

Riduan Isamuddin

ISN: 10019

Nationality: Indonesian

The following is a summary of the allegations against Hambali found in publicly available US military documents. If US military documents about this prisoner are inaccurate or misleading then this summary will be as well. The introduction to this set of summaries explains some of the terms used below.  

Hambali’s DAB says that he is a member of Jemaah Islamiya (JI) and Al Qaeda. Hambali was wanted for arrest by Indonesian authorities in connection with a series of coordinated bombings of Indonesian churches in Jakarta and eight other cities. The bombings took place on December 24, 2000 and killed 18 people. Hambali told US interrogators he was involved in the December 2000 Indonesia church bombings. He said his actions were just because of injustices being committed towards Muslims in Indonesia.

According to a JI member, Hambali was also involved in the bombing of the residence of the Philippine ambassador to Indonesia on August 1, 2000. That bombing killed two people and seriously injured the Philippine ambassador.

Hambali was sentenced by a Cambodian court, in absentia, to life imprisonment for planning strikes against the US and British embassies in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Al-Hadi said that Hambali was responsible for the October 2002 bombing of two nightclubs in Bali that killed 202 people.

Hambali’s DAB says that he told Zubair to case Israeli El-Al flights out of Muang airport in Bangkok and to purchase a surface to air missile. His DAB also says that he surveyed the Israeli Embassy himself in 2002.

The US government believes that there was an aborted part of the 9/11 attacks to high-jack planes belonging to US airlines and crash them into US military facilities in Asia. Hambali’s DAB says two members of Al Qaeda stayed at his house while they prepared for the attack.

Hambali’s DAB says that he sent money to be used in the bombing of the J.W. Marriot hotel and the Australian Embassy in Indonesia. The August 2003 bombing of the Marriot hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia killed 12 people.

Hambali was captured in August 2003 in Thailand through a joint US-Thai operation. He was sent to Guantanamo in September 2006. Hambali is one of the high value detainees which are held in a separate part of Guantanamo away from the general population. Hambali was recommended for prosecution by Obama’s Guantanamo task force in January 2010.