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.