KUALA LUMPUR Aug. 25 Kyodo Malays...

KUALA LUMPUR Aug. 25 Kyodo

Malaysia said Monday it has deported individual of the top leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) back to Indonesia after releasing him from a two-year detention in subordination to the local security law.

delegate Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi confirmed Muhammad Iqbal, 46 an Indonesian preacher holding Malaysian permanent residency, has been deported. He was fre last Friday.

''He has been sent back to Indonesia,'' Abdullah, concurrently family circle minister, told reporters.

Muhammad Iqbal, also known as Abu Jibril, was arrested in June 2001 beneath the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for indefinite detention without trial.

His arrest came following a botched bank robbery attempt a month before that l police to lay bare the existence of the Malaysian Militant dispose KMM as it is known by way of its Malay acronym, the local link to JI.

Muhammad Iqbal together with other Indonesian preachers Hambali, Abu Bakar Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar were instrumental in the rise of militancy in Southeast Asia with their aspiration to establish a pan-Islamic state in the region.

The four fl to Malaysia in the mid-1980s after then Indonesian President Suharto ordered a crackdown forward Islamic radicals.

Bashir is now forward trial in Indonesia for treason for plotting to topple the dominion through militant means.

Hambali, captured brace weeks ago, is in U custody.

Abdullah Sungkar died in 1999

The envoy prime minister said Indonesian authorities did not follow Muhammad Iqbal's extradition.

''They did not have to ask for him to be sent back,'' he said.

Abdullah did not give the reason on what account Malaysia opted to release Muhammad Iqbal since subordinate to the ISA his detention could be extended

JI has alleged links to the al-Qaida international terrorist network l at Osama bin Laden.

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