Ba'asyir verdict proves Jakarta's halfheartedness

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.