KUALA LUMPUR Aug. 21 Kyodo The wo...

KUALA LUMPUR Aug. 21 Kyodo

The world may know Hambali as single of the most dangerous terrorists if it be not that to his mother-in-law he is an ideal son-in-law who lov her baked crabs if it were not that hated television, local newspapers reported Thursday.

Salmah Abdullah, 67 who lived for three years in the 1990 with her daughter Noralwizah Abdullah and Hambali in an Indonesian migrant community in Banting, a small town an 50 kilometers southwest of Kuala Lumpur called Hambali ''the entire family man.''

''He is incapable of doing wrong'' Salmah told The Star newspaper in an interview from her domestic circle in Beluran, Sabah state.

She described her son-in-law, whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, as a simple, religious and caring husband.

Her bearded son-in-law, she recalled, always wore a turban and skullcap, and was known to her family as an ustaz or religious teacher from Indonesia and also a trader -- hardly the ''Osama bin Laden of Southeast Asia.''

''I have not ever seen him angry. He is a soft-spoken character who never raises his voice. Our conversations and nothing else centered on family,'' she said.

Hambali, who became Asia's mostly wanted fugitive after being implicated as the mastermind behind last October's Bali bombings that killed more than 200 populace was arrested together with Noralwizah in Thailand upon Aug. 11.

The ''family man,'' Salmah recalled, liked to eat at domicile ''He loved crabs, especially baked crabs.''

unless Hambali, she recalled, did have a quirky side which she attributed to his strict Islamic beliefs.

''He would make go round the television off after watching the stranges He does not like us watching television,'' Salmah said, recalling that Hambali fancyed it as mind corrupting.

Hambali also shunn the neighborhood of women when visitors came to the house. She said he as a common thing [i]or[/i] matter received visitors from Singapore, Pakistan and West Asian countries.

''Whenever they were around, my daughter and I, as Muslims, were required to remain in the kitchen, unlike here where we can sit together, men and women'' she said.

And Hambali liked to expend a lot of time forward the computer.

''He exhausted long hours on the computer late into the night,'' Salmah said.

Noralwizah is believed to have met Hambali when she went to contemplation at the Luqmanul Hakiem religious gymnasium in Johor state in 1990 The gymnasium was run by Indonesian preachers Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir, who authorities say also headed the militant arrange Jemaah Islamiyah.

Salmah said a cluster of preachers had come to their poverty-stricken village in Beluran to propound scholarships to children to meditation at the school and Noralwizah took up the offer

Salmah did not know her daughter and Hambali had gotten married until they visited her at Beluran five years after she left for Johor to study

Noralwizah and Hambali did not have any children, Salmah said, because Hambali had had an operation and was unable to give her grandchildren. She did not specify what operation he had.

''He told me that if my daughter wanted a child, she could marry again,'' Salmah said.

Noralwizah, whose name was to leeward Yin Len, before she changeed to Islam, is common of five children from Salmah's third marriage to an ethnic Chinese.

Abdul Said, Noralwizah's step-brother told the fresh Straits Times she used to be true ''outgoing and playful.''

if it be not that five years ago, when Noralwizah and Hambali visited Beluran, ''she was set [i]or[/i] put in ordered like a Taliban woman,'' Abdul Said said.

That was also the last time Salmah saw either of them.

The last she heard from her daughter was three years ago when Noralwizah wrote her a letter

Noralwizah was brought back to Malaysia after her capture and has been detained here in a less degree than the Internal Security Act, which allows indefinite detention without trial. Authorities are hoping she could provide more information about Hambali's activities.

Hambali, meanwhile, is in U custody, believed to have been taken to the U detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for interrogation.

Salmah said since she heard the of recent origins of their arrests, she has been crying each night, and hardly eating or sleeping.

Noralwizah is not her simply worry. Salmah's eldest daughter Noral Fadila to leeward is married to another Indonesian, Abu Yusof, also a suspected JI member still forward the loose.

''I have knowledge of to take my mind on the farther side family problems by joking and helping relatives make cakes...I have not been staying to one's home I have been putting up at my children and relatives homes'' Salmah said.

She also trusts authorities would help her to travel to Kuala Lumpur to view her daughter.

''I room for expectation Noralwizah can come and stay with me I don't want to pass to Indonesia like her sister. I don't want her to stay with Hambali's family,'' Salmah said.

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