A man accused of involvement in last year's bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta told police that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden funded the attack with Australian currency, reports said yesterday.
A package containing some A$10,000 (US$7,500) in cash was delivered by courier to Malaysian master bomb-maker Azahari Husin before the attack that killed 11 people, the Australian newspaper said.
The paper said it had gained access to the transcript of an Indonesian police interrogation of a man named Rois, also known as Iwan Darmawan, who is on trial in Jakarta on terrorism charges in connection with the attack.
"According to Dr Azahari's explanation to me at the time, the funds came from Osama bin Laden and they were sent by a courier," Rois, a 30-year-old trader from West Java, was quoted as saying.
Azahari and another Malaysian, Noordin Mohammed Top, are among the most wanted men in Asia. They are accused of leading roles in several terror attacks, including the Bali bombing in 2002 that killed 202 people.
Rois said Australia was attacked because it was an ally of the US and had sent troops to support the US-led invasion of Iraq.
"The intention to bomb the Australian embassy was because the Australian government is the American lackey most active in supporting American policies to slaughter Muslims in Iraq," he was quoted as saying.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said he was not surprised at the news that Bin Laden had funded the attack, saying there were strong links between Al-Qaeda and the Jemaah Islamiyah group accused of carrying out the bombing. But he told national ABC radio, which also obtained the transcript of the interrogation, that he rejected the suggestion that Australia's involvement in Iraq had made it a target.
"We know that they were targeting us well before, and to assume if we had not been involved in Iraq, if we hadn't been involved in Afghanistan, that these wouldn't be happening, I think would be a very unsafe assumption," he said.
Asked whether the cash for the attack could have been sent from Australia, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters: "We honestly just don't know where the money comes from.
"And it's A$10,000 so it's not so much as to be an alarming amount of money. So it could have come from anywhere.
"But it would be unlikely that, you know, Osama bin Laden himself would go to a bank somewhere in the Middle East and take out A$10,000 in Australian currency."
The claims about the Jakarta attack came as the government of Prime Minister John Howard embarked on a major review of Australia's counter-terrorism capabilities in the wake of the London bombings earlier this month.
It is examining tough new anti-terror legislation and security measures including increased video surveillance of public places and the use of sniffer dogs and more bag searches on public transport.
Howard has acknowledged that Australia could be a terrorist target, but has also rejected charges by critics that his deployment of some 900 troops to Iraq alongside US and British forces has increased the risk.
Counter-terrorism officials last month raided several homes in Sydney and Melbourne on suspicion that attacks were being planned against iconic sites such as Sydney's Opera House and Harbour Bridge and Melbourne's rail network.
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