LAKSAMANA.Net, May 16, 2005 09:02 PM
Jakarta High Court upheld Baasyir's 30-month jail sentence
Laksamana.Net - Jakarta High Court has upheld radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar
Baasyir's 30-month jail sentence for involvement in the conspiracy behind the October
2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people.
Court spokesman Hussein Kasim on Monday (16/5/05) said the panel of judges last
week upheld the verdict handed down by South Jakarta District Court on March 3.
Baasyir's lawyers now plan to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Jakarta High Court made its decision in a closed session on May 11 but did not
inform Baasyir's lawyers, the Attorney General's Office or the press until Monday.
One of Baasyir's lawyers, Mahendradatta, said he was not surprised by the decision.
"We had suspected the High Court would not dare to exercise its authority to reopen
the trial by listening to the testimony of Amrozi bin Nurhasyim," he was quoted as
saying by detikcom online news portal.
He said the ruling was a continuation of the "transparent dishonesty" of the trial at
South Jakarta District Court, where judges stated that Amrozi had declined to testify
as a witness.
The lawyer said that if the Supreme Court "tolerates the lie" it would prove there has
been "no reform in the Indonesian courts".
South Jakarta District Court's verdict was based on a single police report alleging that
Baasyir gave convicted Bali bomber Amrozi his blessing to carry out the attacks.
Mahendradatta has argued that a March 24 letter from Amrozi states that he never
discussed the bombings with Baasyir. It also contains a denial of the prosecution's
claim that Amrozi refused to testify at the cleric's trial.
Baasyir's verdict was criticized by the US, Australian and New Zealand governments
as "too lenient". But observers said the prosecution was lucky to get a conviction,
given the lack of hard evidence, various legal constraints and flimsy witness
testimonies.
South Jakarta District Court cleared Baasyir of charges that as head of regional
terrorism network Jemaah Islamiyah he had incited his followers to launch terrorist
attacks and had planned the August 2003 suicide bombing at Jakarta's JW Marriott
Hotel that killed 12 people.
He was also cleared of accusations that he visited a Jemaah Islamiyah military
training camp in the southern Philippines in April 2000 and had passed on an edict
from Osama bin Laden calling for killings of Americans and their allies.
Baasyir has always denied any wrongdoing and claimed his trial was held at the
behest of the US and its allies because they opposed his campaign for Islamic law in
secular Indonesia.
The cleric was arrested shortly after the Bali bombings. He was tried at Central
Jakarta District Court in 2003, accused of treason, leading Jemaah Islamiyah,
authorizing bombings, violating immigration regulations and falsifying identity
documents. He was cleared of the terror-related charges and served 18 months in jail
for immigration violations and forging documents. He was immediately re-arrested
upon his release in April 2004 and accused of the Marriott and Bali bombings. Having
spent 10 months behind bars pending his last trial, he could be released by October
2006, or even earlier if his appeal to the Supreme Court succeeds.
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