An Indonesian Islamic militant testified yesterday that that he had unknowingly transported explosives for top Malaysian terror suspect Noordin Mohammad Top, who has been eluding police capture for three years.

Ahmad Rofiq Ridho, testifying in the trial of fellow militant Joni Akhmad Fauzani, said he had helped Noordin - who disguised himself as a man named Aiman - retrieve his backpack from his East Java hideaway in February 2005.

Fauzani is accused of harbouring Noordin after the suicide bombing at the Australian embassy in September 2004, which killed 10 bystanders and injured more than 100.

Ridho told South Jakarta district court that Noordin, who had accidentally left the bag to evade a police raid, had only asked him to "pick up" the bag and return it to Semarang city in Central Java but never revealed its contents.

He said he later found out Aiman's real identity after he was arrested by police in the Central Javanese town of Solo while making a stop there during his mission.

Tortured by police

Ridho is on trial separately for allegedly surveying bombing targets including a Christian school in East Java at the behest of Noordin.

In his charge sheet, Ridho was said to have testified that he knew the bag contained explosives. But he told the trial he had been "slightly" tortured by police into admitting that Noordin had stored explosives in the bag.

Ridho is the brother of Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, a leading member of the Jemaah Islamiyah extremist group (JI) who was killed by Philippine troops in

Noordin, a Malaysian, has been a key member of the JI group which has carried out a series of deadly bombings in recent years.

His chief accomplice and compatriot Azahari Husin was gunned down by anti-terror police last November but Noordin remains on the run.