OPINION

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12286231%255E7583,00.html

Sally Neighbour: Making a martyr of a mastermind

February 18, 2005
WHILE Australia's attention has been focused on the epic human tragedy in Aceh, in the Indonesian capital Jakarta the trial of the accused terrorist mastermind Abu Bakar Bashir has been unfolding, largely unreported by the world's media. Bashir will soon be either a free man or a political martyr - neither the outcome wanted by Australia.

Last week, the prosecution wound up its case and asked the court to jail Bashir for eight years for having incited the 2002 Bali bombings and the attack on the Marriott hotel in Jakarta in 2003. Eight years for these atrocities falls way short of the maximum penalties of life imprisonment or death.
The fact is that after more than three months of testimony, there has been no hard evidence that Bashir was involved in these bombings. The best the police could come up with was a conversation Bashir supposedly had in 2002 with his young acolyte, Amrozi, now on death row. Amrozi is said to have asked Bashir, "What if my friends and I were to hold an event in Bali?" Bashir is said to have responded, "It's up to you, you're the ones who know the situation on the ground." And when the man who allegedly recounted the conversation was brought into court to testify, the story evaporated.
One after another, Jemaah Islamiah witnesses have withdrawn their statements, recanted their evidence and refused to implicate Bashir. As for the Marriott, not a single witness has linked Bashir with that attack, not surprising given that Bashir had been in prison for eight months when it occurred.
The most compelling testimony was the account of one of Bashir's former lieutenants, Mohammed Nasir bin Abas, who described a visit Bashir made to JI's military training camp in the southern Philippines for a graduation ceremony in 2000, when he allegedly spoke of having met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and urged his followers to wage jihad. But like the witnesses before him, Nasir was unable to link Bashir directly with acts of terrorism.
While some of the witnesses may well be lying, the evidence overall is consistent with what we now know about Bashir's role as spiritual leader of JI. Over the years, Bashir appears to have become less directly involved in JI's day-to-day operations.
At his first trial in 2003 there was strong evidence that Bashir had personally approved earlier plots including the bombings of dozens of Christian churches across Indonesia on Christmas Eve in 2000 and a plan to kill the former president, Megawati. The evidence in that case, principally from JI's former treasurer Faiz bin Abu Bakar Bafana, was the most damning testimony ever presented against Bashir. However it was basically rejected by the court, and Bashir was ultimately acquitted, because Bafana did not appear personally to testify.
Since then, numerous accounts from JI detainees have suggested that after 2000, as JI's operations chief Hambali gained the ascendancy, Bashir became less personally involved in the planning and execution of attacks -- perhaps in part for his own protection. Hambali would know better than anyone whether Bashir sanctioned the Bali bombings. Arrested in Thailand in 2003, Hambali is now a prisoner of the US. But despite repeated requests from the Indonesian authorities, the US has refused to hand him over, either to testify or to stand trial.
In Indonesia's notoriously corrupt and arbitrary justice system, the outcome of any case is hard to predict. If Bashir was on trial in Australia, the primary charges that he incited the bombings would likely have been thrown out of court. The accusation that Bashir was the leader of JI -- although undoubtedly true -- would probably not have made it to trial at all this time around; Bashir has already been acquitted of that charge and, under Australia's laws of double jeopardy, could not be tried again for the same offence.
Bashir's lawyers claim -- with some justification -- that even the eight years sought by the prosecution would be a travesty when, as they put it, "the prosecution could not prove anything". Bashir may well be acquitted and released. But given the case's political importance, the court will be loath to set him free.
A more likely result is that he will be acquitted over the bombings but convicted of the lesser charges and jailed for something short of eight years. This is an outcome that will please no one -- except, possibly, Bashir. The Australian and other foreign governments who have lobbied for his incarceration will be disappointed again; his legions of supporters will erupt in angry protest; while Bashir's own status will be further enhanced as a political and religious hero seen to have been unjustly convicted and imprisoned for his beliefs.

Sally Neighbour is an ABC Four Corners journalist and author of In the Shadow of Swords: On the Trail of Terrorism from Afghanistan to Australia (HarperCollins, 2005).