Bashir plays down Jakarta attack links

Abu Bakar Bashir's lawyers have distanced him from the Jakarta terror attack, as the radical cleric tries to convince the courts he should be freed from jail.

Police say the perpetrators of last week's assault, which killed four people, underwent paramilitary training in a camp in Aceh, North Sumatra, which Bashir is in jail for supporting.

The cleric is notorious in Australia as the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, the group behind the 2002 Bali bombings.

Experts say Bashir's influence has waned, but the Jakarta attack shows the foot soldiers from the old militant groups remain dangerous.

Bashir has lodged a bid for a judicial review of his conviction and 15-year jail sentence, and his lawyer Mahendradatta says he is upset about being linked to the Jakarta attack.

"He feels sabotaged by the incident because every time he lodges a legal effort, there's always something," he told reporters on Tuesday.

"Ustad Abu (Bashir) is also sad because he's always linked with various terrorism activities. He says: 'What else am I linked with this time?'"

The lawyer did not say if the cleric, whom he visited on the prison island of Nusakambangan, regretted the loss of innocent lives - only the impact the attack might have on his case.

He also denied that Bashir knows Bahrun Naim - the Indonesian mastermind believed to be with Islamic State in Syria, or Sunakim, known as Afif, one of the Jakarta gunmen who wore a black T-shirt.

Afif, 32, was sentenced to seven years' jail for his underground training in Aceh and released last year after satisfying authorities he had been rehabilitated.

Mahendradatta denied Afif had ever visited Bashir in Nusakambangan.

"If you don't believe me, please ask the intelligence and the officers there," he said.

"The prison where he is now has super maximum security status."

But terror observer Al Chaider told AAP he knew of three occasions when Afif had met Bashir in jail, in November and December last year, after he was released from prison in East Jakarta.

He says the prosecution should raise this at Bashir's judicial review, as well as his 2014 pledge to IS, captured in widely circulated photos.

"(Bashir) knows that he won't get anything from this trial," he told AAP, downplaying his influence.

"He's only using the trial for a stage, to convey his radical ideas again."

Bashir's lawyers say the 77-year-old now denies supporting IS.

They had planned to argue Bashir did not know his donations were going to armed training in Aceh. However in court last week, the cleric gave a long defence of his decision to back the camp, arguing it was a religious obligation.

His case returns to court next week.

It's said Afif and Bahrun Naim were followers of terror convict Aman Abdurrahman, who is in a different prison to Bashir on Nusakambangan, and who pledged allegiance to IS in 2014.