Reuters, 01 Dec 2003 11:21:25 GMT
Indonesia court clears Bashir of treason, cuts jail
By Achmad Sukarsono and Jerry Norton
JAKARTA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - An Indonesian high court has cleared radical Muslim
preacher Abu Bakar Bashir of treason but upheld other charges.
A spokesman for the Jakarta court also said on Monday Bashir's prison sentence,
handed down in September, had been reduced to three years from four.
Lawyers for Bashir said they had not received notification from the court on the appeal
and would still fight for his release.
But the decision brought immediate criticism from some analysts who saw it signaling
a softer Indonesian stand on militancy.
Security hardliners in the West as well as in neighbouring countries such as
Singapore had attacked the original four-year sentence as too light.
A Jakarta lower court ruled in September that Bashir, accused of being the spiritual
leader of the Jemaah Islamiah militant Muslim network, at least knew the group
existed, and convicted him of treason and other charges.
But it said allegations Bashir led Jemaah Islamiah, blamed for actual and planned
violence throughout the region, were unproven.
The appellate court, in a ruling announced on Monday, overturned the treason
conviction but upheld charges of forging documents and violating immigration laws,
the spokesman said.
"The high court has decided the defendant has to be punished for three years," said
high court spokesman Hasan Basri, who said the ruling was reached last month but
not announced.
"The defendant has been proven guilty of forging documents, and getting in and out of
Indonesia without going through immigration. However, on the charge of toppling the
government that was ruled proven by the lower court, the appeals panel ruled that it
was not proven," he told reporters.
"UNFORTUNATE"
Sidney Jones, Indonesia project director for the International Crisis Group think-tank,
said the ruling could make the conviction of other militant suspects harder.
"It's an unfortunate decision by the appeals court because it's going to make it much
more difficult for Indonesian prosecutors to convict members of Jemaah Islamiah
simply for their role in the organisation," Jones said.
The Jemaah Islamiah is widely seen as al Qaeda's arm in Southeast Asia and as
being behind the Bali bombings last year that killed 202 people, many of them
Australians, and August's attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, which killed 12.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said shortly after the September verdict he
believed Bashir had led the group.
"The original verdict didn't impress a lot of people and the ruling today even less so,"
Ken Conboy, head of RMA Indonesia, a Jakarta-based security risk company, told
Reuters.
"A lot of people were seeing this as a litmus test for how serious the government was
and they don't seem to have met a lot of people's expections."
Jones told Reuters decisions such as the appeals court's "could simply postpone the
problem of terrorism in Indonesia".
"I think the problem is going to be in the trials to come of people like Bashir, who
weren't directly involved in the Bali bombs or the Marriott bombs, but whose major
crime was to have been involved in helping this organisation function," she said.
Jones said she favoured an outright ban of Jemaah Islamiah as a terrorist organisation
but saw that as unlikely ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections next year
"because no political candidate wants to be seen as offending a conservative
constituency that might provide some votes".
Not only the defence, but prosecutors seeking a stiffer sentence had appealed the
original decision, which could still be changed by the supreme court if the appeals
process continues.
There is still room for "the prosecutors to appeal. The legal process has not yet been
exhausted", said foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa.
"Whatever the standard, one must not lose sight that we have an Abu Bakar Bashir
who is behind bars for lesser crimes. We have this person now behind bars for
potentially three years through a legal means," he said.
"Some countries have put away people behind bars but not through the same legal
process."
Indonesia's neighbours Singapore and Malaysia have used draconian internal security
laws to hold suspected Jemaah Islamiah members indefinitely without trial. (Additional
reporting by Dan Eaton)
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