The Jakarta Post, 1/11/2006 6:07:23 PM
Indonesian court rejects appeals by embassy bombers
JAKARTA (AP): An Indonesian appeals court has upheld the death sentences of two
militants in the 2004 suicide bombing at the Australian Embassy, a lawyer for the
men said Wednesday.
Iwan Darmawan and Mohamad Hasan will now appeal to the Supreme Court their
convictions for helping plan and carry out the bombing that killed 11 people and
wounded 200, said lawyer Mahendradatta.
He said their appeals were rejected last week and that he had not yet been given a
copy of the verdict.
Judges at the appeals court meet behind closed doors, and do not announce their
verdicts to the public.
Police and prosecutors have said the perpetrators carried out the blast to punish
Australia for its involvement in the invasion of Iraq. All of the dead were Indonesians,
most of them Muslims, who were walking past the mission when the bomb exploded.
Four other militants convicted in the attack on the heavily fortified mission are serving
from three years and six months to 10 years in jail.
Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked group that allegedly had cells throughout
Southeast Asia before a crackdown in 2003, has been blamed for the embassy
attack.
The same group is accused in two attacks on Bali island that more than 220 people,
mostly foreign tourists, and a 2003 blast at Jakarta's J.W. Marriott hotel that killed 12.
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