Indonesia’s legal system is the “weakest link” in the nation’s fight against terrorism, analysts said after a court slashed the jail term of the country’s slipperiest terror convict.
A district court in June sentenced radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir to 15 years in prison for deliberately inciting terrorism and funding a new terror cell allegedly planning deadly attacks on Westerners and politicians.
The Jakarta High Court disclosed on Wednesday it had overturned the conviction one week earlier and found Bashir, 73, guilty of a similar but less serious offense, cutting his sentence to nine years.
Photo: AFP
Bashir was once convicted of conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, but was cleared on appeal, and has several times avoided guilty verdicts or won slap-on-the-wrist punishments or sentence reductions.
“Our legal system is the weakest link in this fight,” prominent terror analyst Noor Huda Ismail said.
“Police have done quite a good job in arresting suspects and finding terrorists in raids, but once it gets to the courts, there are a lot of problems prosecuting a case,” he said.
Indonesia’s anti-terror police unit, Detachment 88, has successfully weakened large extremist networks, killing some of Southeast Asia’s most notorious terrorists in bloody raids.
However, Bashir has been particularly difficult to pin down because of legal rules, such as a ban on phone-tapped conversations as evidence in terror trials — although a new law will give authorities more power to bug communications.
“The prosecutors had phone conversations in which Bashir admitted he had funded the terror cell, but it couldn’t be used as evidence. So I think this new law will make a big difference, as long as it’s not abused,” Ismail said.
Some key witnesses in Bashir’s case refused to testify in court, and giving evidence via video conference made effective examination difficult, Ismail said.
Finding evidence against Bashir was challenging as the cleric allegedly only incited acts of terror and did not get involved in actual operations, political analyst at the University of Indonesia Andi Widjajanto said.
“Under terror laws, you either have to be caught red-handed, or have at least three witnesses give evidence. There must also be either audio, video or documented evidence,” he said.
“That’s why the court for the third time has failed to prove Bashir is directly involved in terrorism,” he said.
The high court admitted that it had showed clemency to the elderly cleric.
“We also reduced the sentence as an act of humanity for this old man. The judges consider the nine-year sentence as long enough,” court spokesman Ahmad Sobari said.
Nonetheless, Greg Fealy, an Indonesian terror specialist at the Australian national University, said that many convicted terrorists had received lengthy sentences in recent years.
“In most cases, the convicted terrorist has got around six to 10 years in prison, and that’s been very consistent. In Bashir’s case, there was strong evidence against him, so 15 years seemed fair and proportional,” Fealy said.
However, after criticism of the video evidence, he said: “We knew there would be a problem and that Bashir would appeal.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese