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| Southeast Asia |
| Prosecutors drop Bashir death sentence demand |
| 2005-02-08 |
| INDONESIAN prosecutors have dropped plans to seek the death penalty for firebrand Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. Instead, they will seek a jail term for the alleged terrorist leader after several key witnesses failed to testify against him. Defence lawyers said the case against their client was weak. Prosecutors asked judges today to sentence Bashir to just eight years on terrorism charges that can be punished with execution by firing squad. The charges included inciting the bombings of nightclubs on Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians, and the 2003 attack on Jakarta's JW Marriott hotel, which killed 12. Chief prosecutor Salman Maryadi told the South Jakarta District court that evidence clearly showed Bashir, 66, was guilty of offences that had led to the endangering or loss of lives. "The defendant is proven guilty of carrying out terror acts as stipulated in the law ... and proven guilty of causing the fires (in the Bali blasts) which caused the deaths," he told the makeshift courtroom in a south Jakarta auditorium packed with Bashir supporters. Bashir, dressed in a grey jacket and white skull cap sat quietly as the prosecution's submission was read out. Scores of his supporters expressed outrage at Mr Salman's request to the five presiding judges. "Prosecutors are cruel," they yelled. One of Bashir's lawyers, Wirawan Adnan, said the request had been a token gesture after a string of high-profile witnesses either did not show or refused to testify against the defendant. That has left prosecutors relying almost solely on the testimony of bespectacled Malaysian Mohammad Nasir Abbas, who became the most senior Jemaah Islamiah leader to roll over when he testified last December that he had been sworn into JI by Bashir. "This is just something they have come up with to save face," Mr Adnan said. "They could not go on with the death penalty charges." Officials say Bashir was the spiritual leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah terror network blamed for a string of deadly terrorist attacks across South-East Asia. In September 2003, a court acquitted Bashir of several terrorism charges and said there was no evidence that he was the head of Jemaah Islamiah. Instead, he served 18 months for immigration violations and was re-arrested using anti-terror statutes as soon as he was released last April. Bashir has repeatedly denied the charges against him and says he is being victimised because of western pressure and because he campaigns for strict Islamic law in Indonesia. Last week, he said Islamic militants who carried out bombings in Indonesia had been misguided. "I don't agree with the violent acts," he said. |
| Posted by:God Save The World |