JI members get 3 years in jail

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.