Indonesian police said today they plan to question a freed Malaysian university lecturer who was suspected of a role in the 2002 Bali bombings.

Indonesian detectives hoped to obtain from Wan Min Wan Mat "new and valuable information" on regional terror networks, spokesman Ariyanto Budiharjo said.

Wan Min Wan Mat, 45, was released Monday after being held in detention in Malaysia since September 2002, shortly before the Oct 12 attack on Bali nightspots which killed 202 people, mostly western tourists.

Named by Indonesian police as a mastermind of the bombing, he testified in a written statement read out by prosecutors at the trial of one of the bombing suspects in 2003 that he had sent cash to the group accused of the blast.

Wan Min denied specific foreknowledge of the Bali attack, but admitted in his statement that he had sent US$30,500 in three instalments to a senior member of the Jemaah Islamiah extremist group to finance "operations in Indonesia as previously planned".

"We have to see how much knowledge he has on terror networks in this country. Who knows, we might be able to obtain new information that can help our investigation," Budiharjo told AFP.

Condemning violence

After his release, the former university lecturer told Malaysia's New Straits Times newspaper that had repented and condemned violence.

"It was wrong and I now realise that," he was quoted as saying.

Violence used by Jemaah Islamiah brought only chaos, he said, urging members to denounce the group which wants to create an Islamic state across several countries in Southeast Asia.

The al-Qaeda-linked group is blamed for numerous blasts in Indonesia in recent years.

These include the Bali nightclub blasts, the August 2003 Jakarta Marriott hotel strike which left 12 dead, and a suicide attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta last September which killed 12.

Abu Bakar Bashir, the group's alleged former leader, was sentenced to 30 months' jail in February for involvement in a conspiracy that led to the Bali attacks. He denies the charges and has appealed the sentence.