The Jakarta Post, 10/15/2004 3:58:15 PM
Ba'asyir to face formal terror charges
JAKARTA (AP: Indonesian prosecutors on Friday formally charged militant cleric Abu
Bakar Ba'asyir with ordering his followers to launch a suicide attack on the J.W.
Marriott hotel in Jakarta last year.
Prosecutors filed a 65-page dossier containing the charges against Ba'asyir at South
Jakarta District Court, prosecutor Andi Herman said.
"Ba'asyir is charged with motivating or ordering people to take part in terrorism, in this
case related to the J.W. Marriott bombing," he said.
The trial of the 68-year-old cleric could now start within weeks.
Prosecutors have earlier said Ba'asyir would be charged with heading Jamaah
Islamiyah (JI), the al-Qaeda linked group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings. It was
unclear whether those charges were also included in the dossier.
Herman said Ba'asyir would be tried under the country's anti-terror law, which allows
the death sentence.
JI has also been blamed for the Marriott attack, which killed 12, and last month's
attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in which nine people died.
Authorities dropped plans to charge Ba'asyir in connection with the Bali attacks after
the country's top court ruled earlier this year that the retroactive application of the
anti-terror law was unconstitutional.
Ba'asyir, who was in jail at the time of the Marriott attack, denies any wrongdoing. (*)
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