Profile: Abu Bakar Ba'asyir

Abu Bakar Ba'asyir does not cut the terrifying figure expected of a man accused of being a leading figure in the murky world of international terrorism.

He is a frail, 68-year-old man with a wispy beard, embroidered white skull cap and heavy glasses perched on his aquiline nose.

Until his arrest a week after the 2002 Bali bombings, Ba'asyir was a teacher at an Islamic school in Solo, central Java.

He still insists he is just a simple preacher.

But according to many people, both in Indonesia and abroad, Ba'asyir is or was the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a shadowy group with links to al-Qaeda.

After his arrest, Ba'asyir was accused in connection with a number of bomb attacks blamed on JI - the Bali bombings, the JW Marriott hotel bombings in 2003 and a series of church attacks in 2000.

He was even accused of planning the assassination of Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia's former president.

But prosecutors have struggled to make any of the charges stick.

First the courts acquitted Ba'asyir of being JI's spiritual leader, after judges said there was not enough proof.

"I support Osama Bin Laden's struggle because his is the true struggle to uphold Islam, not terror - the terrorists are America and Israel"
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, October 2002

Shortly afterwards he was charged in relation to both the Marriott attack and the Bali bombings, as well as a number of other offences.

In his second trial, judges said that while he had not been involved in the Bali attacks, he had given his approval. He was sentenced to 30 months in jail for being part of an "evil conspiracy".

Charges related to the Marriott attack were dismissed.

He was due to be released on 14 June 2006, having served 26 months in a Jakarta prison.

Influential Muslim

Born in 1938, in East Java, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir has spent decades teaching Islam, and become influential among radical Muslims in South East Asia.

His consistent theme has been that Islamic communities are the necessary pre-condition for setting up an Islamic state.

In addition to running the Solo Muslim school in Java, he also sat on the executive of the Mujahideen Council, which was formed in Yogyakarta in 2000 as an umbrella group for people wanting to turn Indonesia into an Islamic country.

He has also called for Indonesia to declare a strict Sharia state.

The former Suharto dictatorship jailed him for subversion in the late 1970s, accusing him of promoting an Islamic state.

He later fled to Malaysia for 13 years to avoid additional jail time, only returning to Indonesia following the fall of Suharto in 1998.

Ba'asyir has voiced support for Osama Bin Laden, but denies having personal links with him or with terrorism in general.

The cleric has repeatedly denied all the charges against him, as well as any link with JI, and condemned the Bali bombing as a "brutal act".