Blast accomplice gets seven-years term
Urip Hudiono, Jakarta
A judicial panel of the South Jakarta District Court sentenced defendant Muhammad Rais on Tuesday to seven years imprisonment for being an accessory in the bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in South Jakarta on Aug. 5, 2003.
The sentence appeared light compared to the prosecutor's recommendation of a 10-year jail term.
In their verdict, the judges ruled that the 29-year-old Rais was guilty of helping two main suspects who are still at large, Dr. Azahari bin Husin and Noordin M. Top, to gather, store and transport the explosive materials that caused the explosion.
The blast ripped through the hotel, killing 12 people and injuring 147 others. The victims were mostly Indonesians, including six drivers, and a Dutch banker.
"The defendant has violated Article 15 of Law No.15/2003 on terrorism by assisting and facilitating the perpetrators of an act of terrorism to commit their crime," said presiding judge Johannes Eter Binti.
The judges also found Rais, who has six aliases, including Edi Indra, guilty of violating Article 55 of the Criminal Code by deliberately forging official state documents.
Rais, who was born in Dumai, Riau province, had asked a Bengkulu district head to issue him with an identity card under the name Ryan Arifin to help him elude capture by the police.
Rais, who went to Islamic schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, is also on the Malaysian police's wanted list for allegedly being a member of Jamaah Islamiyah, a UN-listed terrorist group.
The court, however, concluded that Rais had not been proven to have violated the antiterrorism law by organizing acts of terror that had caused public fear and destruction of vital objects.
"His act of introducing Asmar Latin Sani to Azahari and Noordin has not been proven to be direct involvement in the planning of the Marriott bombing," Judge Johannes said. "In addition, the defendant was already in the custody of the Bengkulu police when the blast took place."
Asmar, who was killed when the bomb exploded, was asked by Azahari and Noordin to carry out the blast by driving a rented Toyota Kijang van packed with explosives to the front entrance of the Marriott hotel.
Upon hearing the verdict, both prosecutor Andi Herman and Rais' lawyer Mohammad Toha requested time to consider whether they would accept the verdict or file an appeal.
Rais himself was immediately ushered away by guards from the prosecutor's office to the court's detention cells after the trial, and refused to comment on the verdict apart from saying he would respect it.
Rais is the second Marriott bombing suspect to be convicted after Sardona Siliwangi, who was sentenced in February to 10 years in prison by the Bengkulu District Court. Sardona was found guilty by the court of storing the explosive materials that were later used to make the bomb.