The Star Online, Monday February 27, 2006
Muslim militant sentenced to life over deadly attacks in troubled
Maluku province
AMBON, Indonesia (AP): An Indonesian court on Monday sentenced a Muslim
militant to life in prison for involvement in two terrorist attacks in violence-ravaged
Maluku province.
Ismail Fahmi Yamsehu was found guilty of violating the country's anti-terror law during
a trial at the District Court in the Maluku provincial capital of Ambon.
The three judges ruled that prosecutors had proven that Yamsehu took part in the
attack on a Christian village on Buru Island in May 2004 in which three people died,
and in an assault last February on a karaoke bar near Ambon. Two people including a
Muslim woman were killed in that attack.
Yamsehu was the fourth of five defendants convicted over the two attacks and a
separate assault last April on a police station that killed eight _ including five
paramilitary policemen.
Asep Djadja, the group's leader, will face the firing squad while two other members of
the gang received life sentences in separate trials earlier this month.
Yamsehu's lawyer Hamdani Laturua said he would appeal the verdict. State
prosecutors, who had sought the death sente! nce, said they had not yet decided
whether to appeal.
Maluku province, about 3,000 kilometers (1,600 miles) east of Jakarta, was known as
the Spice Islands during Dutch colonial rule. It was the scene of a sectarian war
between Muslims and Christians in which up to 9,000 people perished between 1999
and 2002.
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