An Indonesian militant was sentenced to death yesterday for helping plan and carry out last year's suicide bombing that killed 10 people at the Australian Embassy.
Iwan Darmawan, also known as Rois, said he would appeal the verdict -- the first time that the death sentence has been handed down on suspects convicted in the Sept. 9, 2004 attack.
It was the latest in a series of tough sentences against militants in the world's most populous Muslim nation, which has seen three bloody terror attacks on mostly Western targets in the last three years.
Around 20 of Darmawan's supporters shouted "God is Great" when the verdict was read out in South Jakarta District court.
buying, assembling
"The defendant Iwan Darmawan alias Rois and his friends were seriously involved in the planning of the attack by buying explosives and assembling the bomb," Judge Rocki Panjaitan said.
Darmawan is the most senior of six people arrested in connection with the attack.
Three have already been sentenced to prison terms of between three and seven years, and prosecutors have asked for the death sentence for another man accused in the attack.
Police have blamed the attack on the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, which is also linked to the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, and a 2003 blast at Jakarta's J.W. Marriott hotel that killed 12.
truck bombing
Panjaitan said Darmawan surveyed the heavily fortified mission three times before the truck bombing.
He repeated earlier police statements read out to the court that the funding for the attack "came from Osama bin Laden" and was carried out "to avenge the slaughter of Muslims by America and its allies in Iraq."
All of the victims of the bomb were Indonesians, mostly passers-by or security guards.
Three terrorists have been sentenced to death in the Bali blasts, and more than 30 others received prison terms ranging from three years to life.
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