Kusumasari Ayuningtyas/BenarNews
Radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, a co-founder of the group blamed for Indonesia’s deadliest terrorist attack, returned home to his Islamic boarding school in Central Java upon being freed Friday after almost a decade behind bars on militancy-related charges.
The former spiritual leader of al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) left a maximum-security prison in Bogor, south of Jakarta, in a van in the early morning, a spokeswoman for the Directorate General of Corrections said.
“He was in good spirits and good health,” Rika Aprianti told reporters, adding that members of the Densus 88 anti-terror police unit and the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) escorted the 82-year-old Bashir during the drive home.