Jemaah Islamiyah

Indonesia supreme court cuts sentence of alleged Jemaah Islamiyah leader

• Report rights infringement
• published: 21 Jul 2015
• views: 120

File: Jakarta, 2 September 2003 1. Various of cleric Abu Bakar Bashir arriving outside court and waving to photographers 2. Court magistrates sitting down in the courtroom 3. Judge opens trial 4. Bashir enters the court room cheered by supporters and sits 5. Various of Bashir's wife (no name) 6. SOUNDBITE: (Bahasa Indonesia) cleric Abu Bakar Bashir addressing supporters in courtroom: "I hope that this trial will go smoothly. I don't want you to disrupt the trial. No matter how hard the decision is, we are winning. (UPSOUND of demonstrator shouting "Allahu Akbar", God is great) As long as we uphold the law even though we are hit." 7. Various of police guarding courtroom 8. Various of court proceedings 9. Various of Bashir listening to proceedings 10. Wide of court room File: Jakarta - 1 December 2003 11. Wide shot of cleric Abu Bakar Bashir inside prison compound 12. Various shots of Bashir sitting with supporters and media 13. Bashir returning to his prison cell 14. Wide shot of prison compound STORYLINE: Indonesia's Supreme Court has halved a three-year prison sentence passed on cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for forging identity papers, a court official said on Tuesday. The verdict represents another legal victory for the country's leading Islamic radical, who was arrested shortly after the 2002 Bali bombings amid accusations he headed Jemaah Islamiyah, the al-Qaida linked regional terror group blamed for the blasts. A court last September sentenced the 65-year-old cleric to four years in jail for treason and immigration offenses, but cleared him of the main charge of heading Jemaah Islamiyah. In December, an appeals court overturned the treason conviction, but upheld the immigration conviction and his sentence was reduced to three years. Lawyers and prosecutors both filed appeals to the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, a clerk at the Supreme Court said Bashir's sentence had been reduced to one and-a-half years, but declined to give more details. He spoke on condition of anonymity. Lawyers for Bashir said they had yet to be formally informed of the verdict, which means that their client will likely be released next month having been in detention since his arrest. Bashir was the co-founder of an Islamic boarding school in Solo on the island of Java. The school taught dozens of young militants, several of which have been convicted in the Bali bombings. Bashir was not charged in the Bali attack, which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, nor a suicide bombing last year at J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed nine people. He has always denied any involvement in terrorism, but has refused to condemn the 32 militants convicted in the Bali bombings and repeatedly accuses the United States of waging war on Islam. His case has been a sensitive issue for President Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose government has been seeking to root out terrorists without alienating mainstream Muslim opinion. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/f56b25aab481961e4cc29bb697623033 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork