Abu Bakar Ba'asyir may go on trial soon
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir may go on trial soon
Abdul Khalik, Jakarta
The Attorney General's Office (AGO) is still scrutinizing the
case files of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and hopes to begin another round
of court hearings in less than a week, a spokesman said here on
Sunday.
"We are now analyzing Ba'asyir's dossier very carefully. It is
possible that we can bring the case to court within a week if we
see that the evidence is sufficient. We don't want to keep it in
our office too long," Kemas Yahya Rahman told The Jakarta Post.
Based on the law, the AGO has 14 days to decide whether to
return a dossier to police for further investigation or forward
it to court.
The National Police submitted Ba'asyir's files with the
Jakarta Prosecutor's Office early last week, claiming they found
new evidence that the cleric was behind a series of bombings that
rocked the country since 1999.
With the new evidence, the police declared Ba'asyir a
terrorist suspect on April 16 and charged him with Articles 14,
15, 17 and 18 of Law No. 15/2003 on terrorism for allegedly
planning, coercing, abetting and perpetrating terrorist attacks.
If found guilty, he could be sentenced to death.
National Police chief of detectives Comr. Gen. Suyitno Landung
Sudjono said that as the spiritual leader of the secretive group
Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), Ba'asyir was responsible for planning
terror attacks in the country between 1999 and 2002.
The JI is a UN-listed terrorist organization blamed for the
Oct. 12, 2002 Bali bombings and the Aug. 5, 2003 JW Marriott
Hotel attack in Jakarta.
Kemas confirmed that solid new evidence would be required to
charge Ba'asyir for having a role in terrorism cases. Last year,
prosecutors failed to prove that the elderly cleric had a role in
terrorist activities, but the court jailed him for immigration
offenses.
"We can't give you details right now because our prosecutors
are working on it. But there must be something new in the
dossier," said Kemas.
An expert on terrorism from the Indonesian Institute of
Sciences (LIPI), Riza Sihbudi, however, doubted that the new
evidence against Ba'asyir would hold up unless other terror
suspects, particularly Hambali, who is currently being held by
the United States, was able to testify here.
"I think it is essential to bring other (suspected) terrorists
currently in U.S custody to be questioned here in Indonesia.
Otherwise, the trial will be a repeat of the one in 2003 when the
prosecutors failed to link Ba'asyir to terrorism," said Riza.
He said that there was a similarity to the case in Germany, in
which a terrorist suspect walked free because the U.S. government
refused to submit evidence linking him to terrorism.
Based on that, the U.S. should help Indonesia provide evidence
linking Ba'asyir to terrorism in Indonesia, he added.