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| Southeast Asia |
| Six JI face Indonesia death penalty |
| 2007-10-02 |
| Six Indonesian Muslim militants, alleged members of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terrorist network, went on trial Monday and face the death penalty if convicted. Government prosecutors charged the six, who are believed to be followers of captured JI military commander Abu Dujana, with conspiracy to commit terrorism, storing explosive materials, and illegally possessing firearms and ammunition. The six defendants are Ahmad Syahrul, alias Faisal; Mahfudz Gomari; Sekas, alias Karim; Amir Ahmadi, alias Ubu Jundy; Suparjo, alias Sarwo Edi; and Maulana Yusuf Wibisono, alias Kholis. They are being tried in four different trials at the Central Jakarta District Court. They are being prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws enacted just weeks after the October 2002 bombings of two nightspots on the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed more than 200 people. JI was blamed for those attacks and several other bombings across Indonesia in recent years. The six were arrested separately in March by a counterterrorism police unit, Detachment 88, in Surabaya, East Java, in the Central Java district of Sukoharjo and following a shootout in Yogyakarta, Central Java, that left one of their group dead. In the raids, police seized caches of weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition, explosives and chemicals that could be used to make a bomb bigger that those used on Bali. Their arrests directly led to the capture of Dujana, who was nabbed in early June in Banyumas, Central Java, after a police raid on his hideout. Indonesian authorities have said Dujana had replaced Malaysian explosives expert Noordin M Top, another senior JI figure, as the nation's most-wanted fugitive. Top narrowly escaped a police raid in March and remains on the run. Dujana is believed to have played a major role in both Bali attacks and the embassy blast and controlled JI's ammunition and explosives. He is also accused of providing them to militants involved in sectarian violence in Poso in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi province. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 But, hey!, it's Ramadan so they'll all walk. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-10-02 18:45 |