Review sought for terrorism law

JAKARTA: A team of lawyers representing cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir filed on Tuesday a request to the Supreme Court to review Law No. 15/2003 on terrorism following a blow last week by three alleged members of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) group against their client.

M. Mahendradatta, who led the team, said that the law violated Article 28 (i) of the Constitution stipulating that no one could be charged retroactively with committing a crime.

The law was made following the bombings in Bali on Dec. 12 last year.

"We asked the court to review the law," he said.

Ba'asyir is currently on trial for treason and document forgery. Prosecutors tried to prove Ba'asyir's involvement in attempts to topple the government by linking him with JI, a regional terrorist group blamed for a series of bomb attacks in Indonesia between 1999 and 2001.

Last week three Singapore-based witnesses testified via a video link up that Ba'asyir was the leader of JI and that he had approved a series of bombings across the country in 2000. -- JP