Ba'asyir verdict proves Jakarta's halfheartedness
The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore
A Jakarta court on Tuesday said it was unconvinced, on the evidence before it, that the Indonesian Islamic firebrand Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was the head of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), the shadowy Southeast Asian terror network. The chief judge said there was no proof Ba'asyir conspired to overthrow the Indonesian government using JI machinery, although the full Bench was satisfied he had taken part in treasonable acts which had the same objective.
On this fine distinction between being the leader and a participant, Ba'asyir was absolved of the stain of being a terrorist head. But he drew a four-year prison sentence on the proven subsidiary charge of having been a part of treasonable acts. The prosecutors had demanded a 15-year term on the charges of ordering the Christmas Eve bombing of churches in 2000, and for complicity to have Megawati Soekarnoputri assassinated, when she was still vice president. He was cleared of the latter charge.
What is the Indonesian government to make of the turn of events? What is the region to make of it? Southeast Asian governments and security agencies had counted on Ba'asyir's trial as a defining stage in the war against organized terror cloaked in the garb of radical Islam. Ba'asyir's provocative pronouncements on the cultural and spiritual supremacy of syaria law in a multi-cultural region are a matter of public record. In testimony a week ago, he had used the loaded religious phrase "evil kingdom" to refer to Singapore, and implied the authorities here had manipulated Singaporean JI detainees to give fabricated evidence.
It would be an understatement to say Southeast Asia merely resounded to the wholesale dropping of jaws over Tuesday's verdict. For months, as the trial wound its way to its climax, the expectation had been that the mounting evidence would show that the 65-year-old cleric would be convicted and face a long spell in prison. There was the Singaporean detainees' testimony that Ba'asyir was their emir, or spiritual leader.
It has turned out that many outside observers in the English- speaking world, with their English common law tradition, had not understood the Indonesian legal system or had preconceived notions that did not fit. Another reason the expectation of a full conviction may have been unrealistic is the belief -- always tinged with some prejudice and therefore, not completely reliable -- that Indonesian courts can be influenced by opinion and pressure.
It is premature to measure the practical import of Ba'asyir's half triumph or half defeat, depending who is talking. His lawyers will appeal against the jail sentence. But his being put out of circulation even for a few years will create problems in the propagation of his far-out ideas. He has a powerful mass- mobilization vehicle, the Indonesian Mujahidin Assembly (MMI), whose goal is the imposition of syaria law on the whole of the secular republic. He also has a religious school in Central Java, something of a spiritual fount.
But his being absolved of JI lineage and connection is, in the final analysis, only an Indonesian handicap. Other governments in the region will continue to keep a beady eye on him and his shadow connections, in or out of prison. This had been a good spell for Southeast Asia on the anti-terror front: JI operational head Hambali is in detention; Amrozi Nurhasyim, the Bali bomber, has been dispatched by the Indonesian courts; Thai courts Tuesday charged five JI suspects with plotting violence in Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya. The war goes on.