Prosecutors formally charge Ba'asyir with treason
Prosecutors formally charge Ba'asyir with treason
Agencies, Jakarta
Prosecutors submitted the dossiers of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir to the
Central Jakarta District Court on Monday and charged him with
treason and immigration violations.
"We hope the court can form a team of judges as soon as
possible to start the trial," said prosecutor Hasan Madani, who
submitted the dossiers on Monday morning.
Usually, it takes between two weeks to four weeks for a court
to select the judges.
Treason carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail, while
immigration violations are punishable with six years in jail.
The indictment accused Ba'asyir, founder and leader of the
Ngruki school in Solo, Central Java and the alleged spiritual
leader of Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), of plotting a string of bombings
in Indonesia as part of a campaign to topple the government and
set up an Islamic state.
The 25-page charge sheet, however, did not accuse Ba'asyir,
64, of direct involvement in the Bali bombings on Oct. 12, 2002,
which killed at least 202 people and injured more than 350
others, mostly foreigners.
But it said he gave his blessing to the Christmas Eve bombings
targeting churches and priests which killed 19 people in Jakarta
and other cities across the country in 2000.
Ba'asyir "also approved the planning to bomb American
interests in Singapore known as program C," it said. Singapore
foiled that bombing plot with the arrest of a large number of JI
suspects.
The charges, along with thousands of pages of evidence, were
handed over in preparation for a trial. A court official said it
could take part in Jakarta "within weeks".
According to Muljohardjo, Ba'asyir would be tried at the hall
of the Meteorological and Geophysics Agency office building in
Kemayoran, Central Jakarta.
The hall had earlier been used as a venue for the trials of
House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung for graft, and
Tommy Soeharto for the murder of a Supreme Court justice.
"The defendant is the leader and organizer of treason with the
intention of toppling the government and fulfilling his intention
of setting up the Islamic State of Indonesia," the charge read.
It is believed that Ba'asyir and Abdullah Sungkar, who has
died of natural causes, set up JI in the 1990s with Sungkar as
leader and Ba'asyir as his deputy.
The prosecutors also charged Ba'asyir with making false
documents to show he was a resident of the Java town of Ngruki.
He was also accused of making a false affidavit about his
whereabouts from 1985 to 1999 and with failing to carry out his
obligations as a foreigner in Indonesia.
Ba'asyir fled to Malaysia in 1985 after serving a three-year-
jail term for subversion but never notified the Indonesian
embassy there of his presence -- a necessary requirement if he
wished to retain his Indonesian citizenship.
He returned to Indonesia after the fall of dictator Soeharto
in 1998.
Ba'asyir, who was detained last October, was not present in
court. He has denied any links to terrorism but has described al-
Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as "a true Muslim fighter".