First Bali bombing suspect formally charged

First Bali bombing suspect formally charged

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Bali/Jakarta

State prosecutors on the resort island of Bali on Wednesday
formally charged Amrozi, a prime suspect in last year's Bali
bombing that killed more than 200 people, and said he could face
the death penalty if convicted.

Besides presenting the indictment to the district court, the
state prosecutors also handed over the 1,923-page case file and
parts of the L-300 Mitsubishi minivan where the bomb was planted
as evidence.

"With the handover of the file, the matter is now with the
district court," said Attorney General's Office spokesman
Antasari Azhar after witnessing the submission of the file and
evidence to the Denpasar District Court on Wednesday.

The trial of Amrozi is expected to start on May 12.

Police have named 33 suspects in the blasts, and are still
hunting nine others. Amrozi is one of 15 suspects whose dossiers
have been completed.

Amrozi is charged under Laws No. 15/2003 on terrorism and No.
16/2003 on the handling of the Bali bombings.

State prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan said that Amrozi could face
the death penalty, life imprisonment or a jail term of between
four and 20 years.

The bomb attacks were blamed on the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI)
terror group, who are believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda, the man accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 terror
attacks on the United States in 2001.

Lining up for trial in the Bali bombings case after Amrozi are
Imam Samudera, Bambang Setiono, Musyafak, Herlambang, Budi
Wibowo, Masykur, Mohammad Najib, Andi Oktavia, Makmuri, Junaidi,
Rauf, Andi Hidayat, Hernianto and Mukhlas.

Antasari promised that the indictments on the 14 suspects
would be presented by not later than June.

The president of the Denpasar District Court, I Made Karna,
said he would need 10 days to study Amrozi's indictment. Unlike
in a normal criminal case, Amrozi's trial will be heard by five
judges.

Police on the tourist island have beefed up security in
preparation for the landmark trials.

The National Police announced on Wednesday it had released
four out of 18 suspected members of Jamaah Islamiyah due to lack
of evidence.

The four men, identified as Fajri alias Yusuf, Nizam Khalid,
Aan Hasanuddin, Iskandar alias Firmansyah and Fauzan Arif, were
arrested last week in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu. They
were discharged on Tuesday.

Another suspect, Hafidz, who was arrested in Cileungsi
district in the West Java town of Bogor, is also expected to be
released due to inadequate evidence.

National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said the suspects
were set free due to lack of evidence, but denied that the police
had made false arrests.

"We didn't make any false arrests. They were released simply
due to lack of evidence," he told reporters.

Last week, the police announced the arrest of 18 alleged JI
members, including Abu Rusdan, who reportedly had replaced Abu
Bakar Ba'asyir as JI supreme leader.

Another four of the suspects, identified as Sawad, Umar Besar,
Saad and Fadli, have been flown to Bali for investigation of last
year bombings in the province.

Separately, lawyers of terrorist suspect Abu Bakar Ba'asyir,
who is on trial on charges of treason, demanded on Wednesday that
the panel of judges call the witness Umar Al-Farouk to testify
and order his case file produced before the court. The treason
charge against Ba'asyir carries a maximum sentence of life
imprisonment.

Al-Farouk, who was arrested in August last year by military
intelligence officers, was the man who led the police to
Ba'asyir.

"Umar Al-Farouk is the starting point for the case, but he is
not mentioned in the dossier. We want the state prosecutors to
bring Umar Al-Farouk and his dossier to court," the defense
demanded.