ONE of the plotters of the deadly Bali bombings in 2002 raised funds for a second attack on the island via an internet connection from his cell on death row, a senior Indonesian policeman admitted yesterday.

Imam Samudra, who has been sentenced to face a firing squad for his part in the nightclub attacks that killed 202 Indonesians and foreign tourists, advised fellow extremists on ways of raising funds for a second attack last year using a laptop with a wireless internet connection that had been smuggled into his cell.

The revelation, by Police Colonel Petrus Golose, of Indonesia’s anti-terror task force, testifies to the extraordinarily lax conditions, abetted by corruption among wardens, in some Indonesian jails.

According to Colonel Golose, Samudra communicated with a number of extremists, one of whom created a website setting out the best ways of murdering foreigners in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Two of his contacts, Mohammad Agung Prabowo, and Agung Setyadi, are in custody after being arrested last week in separate raids on the island of Java. They have not been charged.

Last year Mr Setyadi, an information technology lecturer who was conniving with a prison warden, smuggled the computer into the jail in Bali where Samudra was being held after being sentenced to death for the first bomb attacks.

Over the course of several months the two remained in touch until Samudra was moved to a high-security prison an island off Java after the second Bali attack in October last year which killed 23 people.

“Imam Samudra . . . directed the fundraising for the second Bali bombing,” Colonel Golose said in Jakarta yesterday. “The laptop allowed Imam Samudra to chat without restrictions in Ahlussunnah and CafeIslam chat rooms [both internet chat rooms with Islamic themes]. This took place before the second Bali bombing.”

Samudra had been due to be shot on Tuesday, along with two other convicted Bali bombers, Amrozi and Ali Gufron, but their execution was suspended after the three instructed their lawyers to seek a judicial review. They are said by the Indonesian authorities to have been members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a South-East Asian affiliate of al-Qaeda.

Compared with corrective regimes in the West, Indonesia prisons can be astonishingly lax. Xanana Gusmão, now the President of East Timor, spent seven years in Cipinang prison in Jakarta after his arrest in 1999 and trial as a guerrilla leader. During that time, supporters smuggled mobile telephones into his cell and he was able to call his field commanders and direct the independence struggle through their satellite telephones.

On Tuesday 18 prisoners on the island of Sumatra managed to escape by blinding their guards with chilli sauce.

Samudra has always been a defiant prisoner. He greeted his conviction with the words: “Infidels die”, and originally welcomed his death sentence because it would bring him “closer to God”. Two years ago he published an autobiography from jail in which he described how to perpetrate credit card fraud as a means of funding terrorist attacks.

In a chapter entitled “Hacking — Why Not?”, he set out a technique known as “carding”, and provided website addresses. If you are successful, he said, you can make more in six hours than a policeman does in six months — but don’t do it for the sake of money: “Remember, the main duty of Muslims is jihad in the name of God, to raise arms against the infidels, especially now the United States and its allies.”

THE BALI BOMBERS

Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra, 36, believed to be commander of bombings, cried Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) when sentenced to death on September 10, 2003

Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, 43, known as the Smiling Bomber for his ever-present grin. Sentenced to death on August 7, 2003, but remains on death row

Ali Ghufron alias Muchlas, 46, overall co-ordinator. Sentenced to death on October 2, 2003, but remains on death row

Jhoni Hendrawan alias Idris allegedly logistics chief for 2002 Bali and 2003 Jakarta bombings. Only found guilty of Jakarta bombing

Ali Imron, 35, only bomber to express remorse for attacks. Given life in prison on September 18, 2003

Azahari bin Husin, 46, allegedly Jemaah Islamiyah’s top bomb-maker, educated at University of Reading. Killed himself after being surrounded by Indonesian police in 2005

Amar Usmanan alias Zulmatin, mid to late thirties, electronics expert and senior Jemaah Islamiyah commander. At large despite $10 million bounty

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