Malaysian accomplice gets 3 years

Urip Hudiono, Jakarta

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced Samsul Bahri bin Husein, alias Farhan, on Thursday to three years in prison for his role in the Aug. 5, 2003, Marriott hotel bombing that killed 12 people and injured 47 others.

The court found the 37-year-old Malaysian guilty of violating Article 13(c) of Government Regulation in Lieu of Law No. 1/2002 -- as amended by Law No. 15/2003 on terrorism -- for facilitating an act of terrorism.

"The defendant was proven to have assisted in the bombing through his concealing of information about the group's activities, which eventually lead to the bombing," presiding judge Ariansyah B. Dali said in the verdict.

The court also found the defendant guilty of violating Article 266 of the Criminal Code for asking another party to include false information in state documents, through the forgery of identification cards using his alias Farhan.

In addition, the defendant, who is a member of the Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), was also found guilty of illegally entering and residing in the country, which is a violation of Article 53 of Law No. 9/1992 on immigration.

The court, however, dismissed charges that the defendant was directly involved in the plotting and execution of the bombing, citing a lack of evidence, even though witnesses testified that the tech-savvy, Afghanistan-trained defendant had coached the attackers on how to assemble bombs.

When asked by judge Ariansyah, the defendant said he would accept the verdict. Bahri has been in custody since September last year, which will count toward his three-year sentence. This means he has just over two more years to serve.

Prosecutor Ramos Hutapea also said he accepted the verdict, although it was more lenient than the five years he had been seeking.

Bahri is the seventh person sentenced for the Marriott bombing. Just this month, Samhuri was sentenced to three years in prison for attending JI meetings that were held to plot the attack, while Mohammad Solihin and Heru Setyanto were each sentenced to seven years in prison for storing and transporting the explosives used in the bombing.

In June, Malikul Zurkoni was sentenced to three years in prison, also for storing explosives, while Slamet Widodo and Lutfi Fadilah were each sentenced to three years in prison for failing to notify authorities of the planned attack.

In May, Muhammad Rais was sentenced to seven years in prison for helping the two main suspects in the bombing -- Azahari and Noordin M. Top -- to obtain, store and transport the explosives.

Another suspect, Edi Suprapto, is awaiting his sentence, which is expected to be announced next week. Prosecutors in the case asked for a 10-year prison term for the defendant.