JI members get 3 years in jail

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced on Monday two members of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist network -- Surono, alias Fadli and Edi Suprapto, alias Yasir -- to three-year prison terms each for storing explosives and harboring an illegal alien, respectively.

The prosecution had requested 10 years each.

Presiding judge Ida Bagus Putu Madeg told the courtroom that Surono, 43, was found guilty of violating the 1951 Emergency Law on illegal storage of explosives.

Surono, head of a JI logistics team, admitted to receiving several cardboard boxes containing ammunition and bomb-making components in 2002 from a fellow JI member and to storing them in his house in Bogor, West Java.

The judges, however, did not find Surono guilty of violating Articles 9 and 15 of Law No. 15/2003 on terrorism as charged, which deal with involvement in plotting and using explosives in terror activities.

In a separate trial, presiding judge Tjaroko Imam found Edi Suprapto, 49, guilty of violating Article 266 of the Criminal Code for falsifying information to obtain an identification card and passport for Samsul Bahri bin Husein, alias Farhan, a fellow JI member from Malaysia.

The judges also found the defendant guilty of violating Article 64 of Law No. 9/1992 on immigration for harboring Samsul, a fugitive who had been convicted by the same court last month to three years in jail.

Edi, however, was cleared of charges filed under Articles 13 and 15 of the Antiterrorism Law on involvement in plotting or aiding a terrorism activity.

The JI is alleged to be the Southeast Asian branch of Osama bin-Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist group, and has been blamed for a string of bombings across in Indonesia, including the Oct. 12, 2002 attacks in Bali that killed at least 202 people, and the Aug. 5, 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in South Jakarta, which claimed 12 lives, including the bomber.