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Cleric linked to Bali blasts gets
30 months
By Bill Guerin
JAKARTA - Muslim cleric Abu Bakar
Ba'asyir, accused of leading an al-Qaeda-linked
terrorist group, was sentenced by an Indonesian
court on Thursday to two and a half years in jail
on conspiracy charges related to the 2002 Bali
nightclub bombing that killed 202 people.
As proceedings opened, about 1,000
policemen secured the court building with a dozen
heavily armed officers escorting Ba'asyir into the
courtroom, where he smiled and, looking toward
reporters, claimed that US President George Bush
was "evil". The 66-year-old cleric has
consistently maintained that Bush, whom he has
referred to as "the enemy of Allah", has pressured
Indonesia to jail him to stop him campaigning for
Islamic law.
"I'm ready to listen,"
Ba'asyir said before the five-judge panel opened
the proceedings. "If I'm released, the trial has
been fair. If not, this has not been a fair trial.
I will fight any sentence against me."
Neither Ba'asyir, his supporters who
packed the public gallery nor the scores of
reporters present had long to wait. Though the
reading of the 250-page verdict was expected to
take until late afternoon, within minutes the
court had read out its sentence.
The
radical preacher was cleared of more serious
allegations that he ordered the Bali bombing but
was handed a 30-month prison term under
Indonesia's anti-terrorism law after being found
guilty of involvement in a "sinister conspiracy".
The primary charge against Ba'asyir
accused him of planning the 2003 suicide bombing
of the JW Marriott Hotel that killed 12 people and
inspiring his followers to carry out the attack.
But the judges said there were neither evidence
nor witnesses to prove that the radical cleric,
who was in jail at the time of the attack, took
part in a conspiracy to bomb the Marriott.
Three other charges accused Ba'asyir of
conspiring in terrorist acts, including the Bali
bombing, and of hiding information about the
attacks.
Australia, which lost a number of
its nationals in the Bali bombing and an attack on
its embassy in Jakarta last year, will ask
Indonesian prosecutors to appeal for a longer jail
term. "It's of some concern to us that the
sentence is as short as it is. We're disappointed
about that. We'd like to see a longer sentence,"
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian
television.
Before the verdict came down,
prosecutors had already dropped the main charge,
which could theoretically carry the death penalty,
that Ba'asyir and his supporters planned the
bombings. Prosecutors demanded only an eight-year
sentence.
Chief defense lawyer Mohammad
Assegaf said last week that there was not a shred
of evidence against his client. "I am convinced he
will be released, if there is no intervention,
because none of the witnesses have incriminated
him," he said.
Assegaf pointed out that
the Central Jakarta District Court in 2003 had
cleared Ba'asyir of terror-related charges,
including the accusation that he was the leader of
the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a
verdict the Supreme Court later upheld. Assegaf
slammed the prosecution's attempts to prove that
Ba'asyir was the leader of the radical Islamic
group as a "rape of the principles of justice".
Jakarta has come under pressure from both
the United States and Australia to act against
Ba'asyir, and the trial heard evidence that
Indonesia was asked to hand Ba'asyir over to US
authorities. The fiery Muslim preacher has claimed
that the trial was held because of pressure on
Indonesia from the "enemies of Islam", mainly the
US president. That came after one of Bush's former
interpreters testified that he attended a meeting
in Jakarta at which a presidential envoy asked
Indonesia to arrest Ba'asyir and hand him over to
the US.
Within minutes of the verdict, one
of several press attaches at the US Embassy in
Jakarta, Max Kwak, issued a response to the
announcement. The United States was disappointed
at the length of Ba'asyir's sentence, given the
gravity of the charges on which he was convicted,
said Kwak, but he added, "We respect the
independence and judgment of the Indonesian
courts."
Australia and the United States
consider Ba'asyir to be the spiritual head of the
JI terrorist group and responsible for acts of
terror in Indonesia. Ba'asyir has repeatedly
denied any links to terrorism, although he has
admitted being an admirer of Osama bin Laden and
has called the Bali bombers misguided but
praiseworthy fighters.
From December 2001
Jakarta was pressed to take a stand against
international terrorism and arrest Ba'asyir.
However, the only "evidence" against him was based
on information gained through the intense
interrogation of mostly uncharged, untried
political detainees rounded up in post-September
11, 2001, terrorist dragnets.
The
Indonesian government refused to meet the US
demands, claiming there was no basis in Indonesian
law to act on its requests. But two weeks after
the Bali bombings police arrested Ba'asyir on
suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities
in Indonesia. The charges against him related to a
series of bombings that preceded, and did not
include, the Bali bombing, but Ba'asyir quickly
gained international notoriety in the media for
his links to the alleged perpetrators of the Bali
attack. He has been behind bars ever since.
Ba'asyir was first indicted for treason,
terrorism and immigration violations, but in a
separate trial last year a lower court acquitted
him of heading the JI and found him guilty of only
immigration offenses and document forgery. He
served an 18-month prison sentence and was
arrested on his release from jail.
Throughout this latest five-month trial,
however, only one witness testified that Ba'asyir
was the spiritual leader of the JI. Several other
witnesses said they knew nothing about his alleged
terrorism links, with most proclaiming that he was
simply an Islamic teacher.
Many believe it
was a mistake to put him on trial without first
building a stronger case against him. Many
analysts had predicted Ba'asyir would either walk
free or receive a prison term far short of the
maximum allowed, partly due to the weak case put
forward by prosecutors.
In their
indictment, prosecutors said that as the JI chief,
Ba'asyir had visited one of the group's training
camps in the Philippines in 2000 and allegedly
relayed a "ruling from Osama bin Laden, which
permitted attacks and killings of Americans and
their allies".
Yet that argument didn't
manage to sway the five-judge panel, which said
that Ba'asyir would get credit for time served and
could be freed before the end of 2006.
Thursday's verdict is likely to be seen, a
tad unfairly perhaps, as a poor reflection on
Indonesia's commitment to fight terrorism. More
than 10 people have already been convicted in the
Marriott bombing and 33 have been accused of
involvement in the Bali blasts.
Meanwhile,
Ba'asyir's credentials as a fundamentalist Muslim
leader are certain to be boosted by the verdict.
He and his followers likely will be able to claim
that what they said from the outset was true, that
Ba'asyir was a victim of "foreign intervention"
because of his efforts to uphold Islamic law in
Indonesia.
The cleric also has said the
prosecution failed to respond to his statement
that Bush had ordered the trial. "This basically
shows that the prosecution admits this trial was
the agenda of Allah's enemies ... The facts and
evidence presented to trap me were essentially
from Bush's request."
After the Bali
bombing, hardline Islamist groups that advocate
violence were isolated to a large degree, and the
majority of Indonesia's Muslim community still
supports religious tolerance and pluralism, though
preaching fundamentalism is not illegal.
Ba'asyir has a strong influence on Islamic
militants and his preaching on the need to promote
Islam in society. For a teacher he certainly had a
turn of phrase that could strike terror into the
hearts of non-believers. During the trial he
warned prosecutors that they would face damnation
in the afterlife, adding that God would also
punish the judges if they convicted him.
"If the panel of judges are convinced that
the prosecutors' charges are intended to aid the
infidels who have evil schemes - the United States
- the judges are obliged to disavow and
categorically reject them to avoid unwanted
consequences in the hereafter," he said after his
summing-up at the last court session.
Though the image of an old man being
persecuted by the West is likely to cut ice only
with radicals, his rejection of the legitimacy of
the secular state out of hand may cause problems
for the government when he is finally released and
free to challenge the US and Western dominance he
describes as cultural terrorism.
"I
reiterate that I only carried out good deeds in
accordance with Islamic Sharia law. And Allah's
enemies opposed this and accused me of carrying
out treason and terrorism," he has claimed.
The sentence, however lenient in Western
eyes, may anger even moderate Muslim leaders and
nationalist politicians who have long accused
authorities of persecuting the cleric because of
US pressure.
Bill Guerin, a
Jakarta correspondent for Asia Times Online since
2000, has worked in Indonesia for 19 years in
journalism and editorial positions. He has been
published by the BBC on East Timor and specializes
in business/economic and political analysis in
Indonesia.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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