Ba'asyir sues minister, prison chief

Ba'asyir sues minister, prison chief

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Lawyers of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir submitted a lawsuit on Tuesday,
demanding that the hard-line Muslim cleric be released from the
30-month prison term he is serving for his involvement in the
Bali bomb attack.

Defendants named in the lawsuit were Minister of Justice and
Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin and Jakarta's Cipinang penitentiary
warden Dedi Sutardi. Ba'asyir is serving his term in Cipinang.

"We are requesting that the detention (of Ba'asyir) carried
out by the Cipinang prison chief with the support of the justice
and human rights minister be declared invalid," lawyer M.
Mahendradatta was quoted by Antara as saying after filing the
lawsuit with the South Jakarta District Court.

The South Jakarta District Court jailed Ba'asyir for 30 months
in March for his role in a criminal conspiracy that led to the
October 2002 bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people.

The court however acquitted him of the more serious charge of
planning terrorist attacks.

The Jakarta High Court dismissed Ba'asyir's appeal last month,
prompting his lawyers to bring the case to the Supreme Court.

In Tuesday's lawsuit, they argued that Ba'asyir's status as an
appeal court detainee expired on Sunday, meaning he should have
been released.

They accused Hamid Awaluddin and Sutardi of failing to show
them paperwork confirming Ba'asyir's change in status as a
Supreme Court detainee.

The two defendants had failed to "present any proof in the
form of a letter or statement" to justify Ba'asyir's further
detention.

"This is an act of oppression and confiscation of freedom,"
lawyer Wirawan Adnan was quoted by AFP as saying.

Mahendradatta said that under Article 19 (7) of Government
Regulation No. 27/1983, the prison chief must release a detainee
if his or her detention term expires, without necessarily being
approved by other officials or government agencies.

The lawyer further argued that the current detention of
Ba'asyir had nothing to do with the 30-month jail term handed
down in March, because it still was not a legally binding verdict
until after the Supreme Court issues a decision.

The 66-year-old cleric was arrested a week after the Bali
bombings, but terrorism charges were thrown out during a trial in
2003.

However, he was found guilty of immigration offenses and
jailed.

Police rearrested him in April 2004 as he left prison after
serving the immigration sentence, citing new evidence of
terrorist links and of his alleged leadership of the Jamaah
Islamiyah terrorist organization.

The 30-month sentence has been criticized by Australia and the
United States as too lenient. They assert that Ba'asyir is the
spiritual leader of Jamaah Islamiyah which has been blamed for
the Bali blasts and a series of other attacks, including a
suicide bombing outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta last
September that killed 11 people.