Court acquits bombing suspect

JAKARTA (JP): The East Jakarta District Court has acquitted an Acehnese student, who earlier faced a possible 15-year prison sentence for his alleged role in the bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange building.

Presiding judge Mansyur Nasution said in the verdict announced on Friday that there was no strong evidence proving that Iswadi H. Jamil had acted as a middleman in the purchase of 43 bars of TNT (trinitrotuluene) that was later used in the JSX building bombing.

Prosecutor Agus Widodo had earlier told the court that Iswadi bought the explosives at a price of Rp 21.5 million for Corp. Ibrahim Hasan, who then gave the defendant Rp 400,000 for his help. Iswadi bought the explosives from Edi Wanda, following advice from Muklis and Rani, according to the prosecutor.

Ibrahim, Edi, Muklis and Rani, however, are all still at large.

On Monday, the South Jakarta District Court sentenced Iswadi to seven years in jail for his involvement in a grenade explosion at the Malaysian Embassy.

Iswadi was one of eight people who were tried in relation to the JSX bombing in September 2000, and in the blast at the Malaysian Embassy in August last year.