PM Goh disappointed by Ba'asyir verdict

PM Goh disappointed by Ba'asyir verdict

Agencies, Singapore/Washington

Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said on Tuesday he was
disappointed by a Jakarta court's four-year jail term for an
Islamic cleric suspected of heading a militant Southeast Asian
militant network.

"It's not the result which we would like to see, but it's the
result which we've got to accept," Goh told British Broadcasting
Corp. in an interview.

Indonesian prosecutors are appealing the verdict on Muslim
cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, whose treason sentence this month was
seen as too lenient in much of Asia and the West.

The prosecutors failed to prove Ba'asyir was the emir, or
spiritual leader, of Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), a militant group
blamed for the Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mainly
Australians, last October.

"In Singapore, based on the evidence that we have, we will
believe that he is the head of Jamaah Islamiyah," Goh said.
"That's the intelligence that we have from the people arrested in
Singapore."

Singapore was among the first nations to identify the threat
posed by Jamaah Islamiyah. Thirty-one people associated with JI
are held now in Singapore suspected of planning to blow up the
U.S. embassy and other Western targets in the city state.

Prosecutors had demanded the prominent cleric be jailed for 15
years. Many saw this as tantamount to a life sentence for the 65-
year-old Ba'asyir, who has suffered from poor health.

When asked if the Jakarta court came up with the wrong result
in its Sept. 2 decision, Goh said: "I would say the result is
fairly undecided."

A Singapore government white paper this year said Ba'asyir
took over leadership of the group in 1999. Singapore has also
linked JI to the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, blamed for
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Separately in Washington, U.S. authorities want to try alleged
terror chief and one of the top JI leaders Hambali for the Sept.
11 attacks, The Washington Times reported on Monday.

"We want to try him for September 11," the paper quoted a U.S.
official, who spoke privately, as saying.

Hambali is believed to be the Asian pointman for the al-Qaeda
group which is blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United
States, and the operations chief of JI, a Southeast Asian terror
network accused of carrying out last October's Bali bombings and
a string of other attacks.

The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks left some 3,000 people dead and
have been claimed by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.