Marriott accomplices get 3 years in prison

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced two accomplices of the Hotel Marriott bombing on Tuesday to three years in prison respectively for withholding information on an act of terrorism.

Presiding judge Ridwantoro said the prosecution had failed to prove that defendant Slamet Widodo alias Pepeng was directly involved in executing the bombing on August last year, in which 12 people were killed and 147 others injured.

The victims, mostly Indonesians, included six drivers and a Dutch banker.

"The defendant is guilty of withholding information on a planned terrorist attack," the judge said in the verdict.

In a separate trial at the same court, presiding judge Ahmad Sobari sentenced Lutfi Fadilah alias Zubair to three years in prison, also for withholding information.

The sentence is more lenient than the prosecutors' demand of 10 years imprisonment.

Both panels of judges considered the defendants' cooperative, courteous approaches as a mitigating factor.

Prosecutors charged them with violating Government Regulation in lieu of law (Perpu) No. 1/2002 rectified by Law No. 13/2003 on terrorism.

The law carries the maximum penalty of death.

Last month, the same court sentenced Muhammad Rais to seven years in prison for helping the two main suspects, who are still at large, Dr. Azahari bin Husin and Noordin M. Top, to gather, store and transport the materials that caused the explosion.

The judges also found Rais, who has six aliases, including Edi Indra, guilty of forging an identity card to elude capture.

The first Marriott bombing suspect convicted was Sardona Siliwangi, who was sentenced in February to 10 years in prison by the Bengkulu District Court. Sardona was found guilty of storing the explosive materials that were later brought to Jakarta.