Bashir appeals slap on wrist for 200 dead

Bashir appeal on terror conviction
From correspondents in Jakarta
March 8, 2005
DailyTelegraph
INDONESIAN Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir today filed an appeal in a bid to overturn a 30-month sentence for involvement in an alleged conspiracy that led to the Bali bombings.

Lawyers representing Bashir argued that the guilty verdict against Bashir was solely based on a police statement purportedly made by a convicted Bali bomber named Mubarok but whose veracity was not proven during the trial.
A Jakarta court on Thursday sentenced Bashir for his involvement in an "sinister conspiracy" that led to the Bali bombings but cleared him of more serious charges of planning terrorist attacks.
Judges said his words to key Bali bomber Amrozi and Mubarok during a meeting in the Java island city of Solo in 2002 constituted the conspiracy.
Bashir, according to a statement allegedly made by Mubarok during police questioning, told them, "I leave it up to you", when he was notified by Amrozi that he and his friends were planning "a program" in Bali.

"This statement could not be verified in court. So Abu Bakar Bashir has been sentenced based on something doubtful," one of Bashir's lawyers, Wirawan Adnan, told AFP.
Analysts have said that chances of Bashir winning the appeal are high in view of what they see as a flimsy prosecution case.
The jail sentence has been criticised by Australia and the United States as too lenient. They insist Bashir is the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and other deadly attacks.
Australia has urged prosecutors to appeal.
Bashir, 66, was arrested a week after the Bali bombings in October 2002 and was first put on trial the following year, but the terrorism charges were thrown out.
However, he was found guilty of immigration offences and jailed.
Police rearrested him in April last year as he left prison after serving the immigration sentence, citing new evidence of terrorist links and of his Jemaah Islamiyah leadership.
Jemaah Islamiyah, which wants to set up an Islamic state across South-East Asia, has been blamed for a series of attacks in the region, including a suicide bombing outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta last September that killed 11 people.
AFP