Malaysian accomplice gets 3 years
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.