Indonesian court upholds Bashir's terrorism conviction
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-17 16:08

An Indonesian court has upheld a 30-month jail sentence for Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for involvement in a conspiracy that led to the Bali bombings, one of his lawyers said.

Wirawan Adnan said the Jakarta High Court had rejected the lawyers' argument and the cleric would now appeal to the Supreme Court in another attempt to overturn the sentence.

"The judges clearly ignored the facts revealed during the trial," he said. The High Court's spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

Militant Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir waves to journalists after his trial in Jakarta, Indonesia in this Feb. 22, 2005 file photo. Indonesia's high court has upheld a 30-month prison sentence for accused terror chief Abu Bakar Bashir for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, a court official said Monday, May 16, 2005.[AP/file]

Bashir's lawyers had argued the guilty verdict against Bashir was solely based on an unproved police statement during the trial that was purportedly made by a convicted Bali bomber named Mubarok.

A Jakarta court in March sentenced Bashir for his involvement in an criminal conspiracy that led to the Bali bombings but cleared him of more serious charges of planning terrorist attacks.

Judges said his words to key Bali bomber Amrozi and Mubarok during a meeting in the Java island city of Solo in 2002 constituted the conspiracy.

Bashir, according to a statement allegedly made by Mubarok during police questioning, told them, "I leave it up to you," when he was notified by Amrozi that he and his friends were planning "a program" in Bali.

The jail sentence has been criticized by Australia and the United States as too lenient. They insist Bashir is the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and other deadly attacks.

Bashir, 66, was arrested a week after the Bali bombings in October 2002 and was first put on trial the following year, but the terrorism charges were thrown out.

However he was found guilty of immigration offences and jailed.

Police rearrested him in April last year as he left prison after serving the immigration sentence, citing new evidence of terrorist links and of his Jemaah Islamiyah leadership.

Jemaah Islamiyah, which wants to set up an Islamic state across Southeast Asia, has been blamed for a series of attacks in the region, including a suicide bombing outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta last September that killed 11 people.

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