Hambali dari Indonesia Ditangkap, Ini Dia Taktik Penangkapan CIA
Did Torture Really Help U.S. Find al Qaeda Chief Hambali?
Editor : Ismail Gani
Translator : Novita Cahyadi
Washington (B2B) - Setelah digembar-gemborkan sebagai keberhasilan Amerika Serikat dalam perang melawan teror, penangkapan teroris asal Indonesia Hambali kerap dibangga-banggakan oleh komunitas intelijen AS sebagai bukti bahwa interogasi keras itu membawa hasil.
Namun laporan Senat AS mengenai metode interogasi CIA yang disiarkan pekan ini menunjukkan bahwa langkah-langkah biasa seperti mengawasi email, bocoran informasi dari informan CIA dan bantuan dari Thailand, justru yang membuat Hambali, tokoh militan Jamaah Islamiyah, berhasil ditangkap.
"Terus terang kami tersandung di Hambali," kata kepala pusat kontraterorisme CIA di Asia Tenggara pada 2005 seperti dikutip laporan Senat AS tersebut, seperti dilansir Yahoo News.
Kisah sebaliknya mengenai sejumlah petunjuk yang membuat para penyelidik makin dekat ke Hambali, melukiskan salah satu silang pendapat besar mengenai interogasi AS kepada para tersangka teror.
Para pejabat senior CIA sebelum ini berulang kali berkata kepada Kongres, Gedung Putih dan Departemen Kehakiman bahwa potongan-potongan informasi dari interogasi brutal terhadap agen senior Alqaeda Khalid Sheikh Mohammed telah membawa pada ditangkapnya Hambali.
Dituduh merencanakan serangan 11 September 2001 ke AS, Mohammed berulang kali menjadi sasaran metode interogasi brutal AS begitu dia ditangkap.
Dia di-waterboarding --teknik penyiksaan dengan meneteskan air ke kepala tahanan yang kepalanya ditutup-- sebanyak 183 kali, kemudian ditampar, dicekik, dan diganggu tidurnya, kata laporan Senat itu.
Mohammed berkata kepada para penginterogasi CIA pada awal 2003 mengenai rencana menyuruh mantan warga Baltimore, Majid Khan, untuk mengirimkan uang sebanyak 50.000 dolar AS ke Asia Tenggara untuk membiayai serangan Alqaeda.
CIA mengatakan informasi itu membantu para penyelidik dalam mengungkapkan jaringan tersangka teror di Asia Tenggara yang dipimpin Hambali. Hambali atau Riduan Isamuddin ditahan di Ayutthaya, Thailand, pada 2003.
Disebut oleh mantan Presiden George W. Bush sebagai salah seorang teroris paling berbahaya di dunia, Hambali disangka terlibat dalam merencanakan Serangan 11 September dan Bom Bali yang menewaskan lebih dari 200 orang.
Dia ditahan di penjara militer AS di Guantanamo, Kuba, tanpa diadili terlebih dahulu, sejak 2006.
Washington - Hailed as a major success in the U.S. "war on terror," the capture of Indonesian cleric Hambali if often touted by the U.S. intelligence community as evidence that harsh interrogation produces results.
But the U.S. Senate report on CIA interrogation methods released this week suggests that more mundane steps - email monitoring, a tip off from a CIA source and help from Thailand - may have been what brought down Hambali, head of militant group Jemaah Islamiah.
"Frankly, we stumbled onto Hambali," the report quoted the head of the Central Intelligence Agency's counterterrorism center in southeast Asia as saying in 2005.
Conflicting stories about the trail of clues that led investigators to Hambali illustrate one of the main disputes over the U.S. interrogation of terror suspects: Awful as it was, did it actually work?
Senior CIA officials told Congress, the White House and the Justice Department for years that a snippet of information from the brutal interrogation of senior al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led to Hambali's capture.
Accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Mohammed was repeatedly subjected to some of the CIA's harshest methods after he was captured.
He was waterboarded - a technique intended to simulate drowning - 183 times, and was slapped, grabbed and deprived of sleep, according to the Senate report.
Mohammed told CIA interrogators in early 2003 about a plan to have a former resident of Baltimore, Majid Khan, send $50,000 to southeast Asia to fund al Qaeda attacks.
The spy agency says that information helped investigators uncover a network of terror suspects in southeast Asia that led to Hambali himself. Hambali, also known as Riduan Isamuddin, was detained in Ayutthaya, Thailand, in 2003.
Described by former President George W. Bush as "one of the world's most lethal terrorists," Hambali is suspected of having been involved in plotting the Sept. 11 attacks and the bombing of a nightclub in Bali that killed more than 200 people.
He has been held at the Guantanamo U.S. military prison in Cuba without trial since 2006.
