JW Marriott bombing accomplice gets gets 12 years

JW Marriott bombing accomplice gets gets 12 years

Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The South Jakarta District Court has found defendant Ismail,
alias Muhammad Ikhwan alias Agus, guilty of involvement in the JW
Marriott Hotel bomb attack on Aug. 5, 2003, and sentenced him to
12 years imprisonment.

Reading out the verdict, presiding judge I Wayan Rena said on
Thursday that Ismail had violated Article 6 of Government
Regulation in Lieu of Law No. 1/2002 on terrorism.

"Together (with the other perpetrators), he intentionally
committed a crime by using violence, spread fear among the public
and claimed lead to the deaths of a number of people," the judge
said.

The sentence was similar to that sought by the prosecution.

The blast at the five-star hotel, located in the Mega Kuningan
business district, South Jakarta, took the lives of 11
Indonesians and a Dutch banker, and wounded 147 other people.

Ismail was also found guilty of being in possession of
explosives in contravention of Article 1 of Emergency Law No.
12/1951. A hand grenade was recovered from him when he was
captured in Cirebon, West Java.

The court said that the 24-year-old defendant transported 3.5
cardboard boxes of explosives from Lampung to the capital and
helped moved them to rented houses on Jl. Kemuning and Jl. Rawa
Bambu, both in South Jakarta.

With alleged mastermind Dr. Azahari, Ismail surveyed the
targeted hotel and the Citibank branch in Pondok Indah, South
Jakarta. He drove Azahari on a motorcycle to the bomb site and
witnessed the blast from the nearby Rajawali building. They later
absconded to Bandung.

The judges, however, declared Ismail not guilty of the primary
charge of violating Article 14 of the Antiterrorism Law for his
involvement in the planning of the attack.

"The defendant was driven by Noordin M. Top," said judge Rena.
"Everything (he did) was by order and he was not allowed to know
what the preparations were for."

Ismail is the 15th defendant, and the last, in the Marriott
case to be convicted and sentenced. The others were sentenced to
between three and 10 years.

The alleged masterminds of the explosion -- Azahari and
Noordin -- are still at large, however. The police have blamed
the recent bombing in front of the Australian Embassy on Jl.
Rasuna Said, Kuningan, on the pair, who are alleged members of
the Jamaah Islamiyah regional terrorist group.

The court took into consideration that the defendant had
admitted his crimes and showed remorse during the trial.

Ismail appeared to calm as he listened to the verdict. Like
other the defendants, he said his conviction was by man, not by
God.

He now has seven days to consider whether or not to appeal.

The first Marriott bombing defendant to be convicted was
Sardona Siliwangi, who was sentenced in February to 10 years in
prison by the Bengkulu District Court. He was found guilty of
storing the explosives that were later transported to Jakarta for
the bombing.

On June, the South Jakarta District Court sentenced Malikul
Zurkoni to three years in prison for storing the explosives used
in the bombing, Muhammad Rais to seven years for helping Azahari
and Noordin to obtain, store and transport the explosives.
Earlier in the month, the same court sentenced Slamet Widodo,
alias Pepeng, and Lutfi Fadilah, alias Zubair, to three years
each for failing to notify the authorities of the planned attack.