Indonesia jails alleged Singapore JI leader
Indonesia jails alleged Singapore JI leader
Reuters, Jakarta
An Indonesian court has jailed the alleged Singapore chief of a radical Muslim network, who has admitted to plans to attack U.S. facilities in the city state, for immigration offences, an official said on Tuesday.
Mulianto, a senior official at the Dumai court in Riau province on Sumatra island, said Mas Selamat Kastari was convicted on Monday and given an 18-month sentence. Riau lies next to Singapore.
"Mas Selamat Kastari was declared guilty and sentenced to 18 months in jail yesterday. He carried out a criminal act over the falsification of documents and as a foreigner entered Indonesia illegally," Mulianto said by telephone.
Last month Kastari told a separate Indonesian court that the militant Jamaah Islamiyah had planned to attack U.S. military facilities in Singapore. The plans were foiled, but his testimony was the first public admission by any Jamaah Islamiyah leader that the radical group had targeted Singapore.
Police in Riau, where Kastari was arrested early this year, have said they had no plan to lodge terror-related charges against one of Singapore's most wanted men.
Prosecutors had demanded five years jail, while the immigration charges carried a maximum penalty of eight years.
Kastari testified about the planned attacks last month at the treason trial of Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'ashir, the alleged leader of Jamaah Islamiyah.
Indonesian police have blamed Jamaah Islamiyah for bomb blasts last October on Bali island that killed more than 200 people, mostly foreign tourists. They have not linked Kastari to the attacks.
Singapore detained about 30 suspected Muslim militants in the months after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and accused them of planning to blow up the U.S. embassy and other Western targets there.
Indonesia and Singapore have no extradition treaty. Jamaah Islamiyah, which has been linked to al Qaeda, wants to set up an Islamic state across much of Southeast Asia.