| Indonesia’s Supreme Court has extended a detention warrant for jailed Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir for 60 days, one of his lawyers said. "The Supreme Court has issued an extension for another 60 days, effective January 20 until March 20," Mahendradatta told AFP. Bashir is appealing to the supreme court against an appeal court ruling in November that he must serve three years in jail for immigration offences and forging documents. However the appeal court cleared him of treason charges and cut by one year the four-year jail term imposed by a Jakarta district court in September. The district court had convicted Bashir of treason by taking part in a Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) plot to overthrow the government. It said there was no proof that he headed the terror network. Bashir’s original detention warrant expires Monday, January 19. Under the Indonesian legal system, a defendant remains free pending the outcome of his final appeal unless a court orders otherwise. Any decision to free Bashir would have dismayed foreign governments, who insist that the cleric at one time headed the al Qaeda-linked JI. Bashir, 65, denies any links to terrorism and says he was framed by Washington because he campaigns for Islamic sharia law. |