Jail term reduced for Indonesian cleric

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The Indonesian Supreme Court has reduced the jail sentence for Abubakar Ba'asyir, a Muslim cleric named by security officials as the leader of a Southeast Asian terrorist network, allowing him to go free by early next month, a court official said yesterday.

The judges slashed in half the three-year prison sentence imposed by a lower court but did not explain their ruling.

Ba'asyir was first detained in October 2002 after the bombing of two nightclubs on Bali, which killed 202 people, mostly tourists. That attack was blamed by Indonesian investigators on Jemaah Islamiah, a radical Muslim underground linked to Al Qaeda, and several of its members have since admitted the group was involved. But Ba'asyir, 65, the founder of a religious boarding school in central Java attended by several leading militants, has repeatedly denied allegations by Indonesian and Western officials that he is the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiah or that the group even exists.

When he was brought to trial before a Jakarta court last year, judges rejected the main accusation against him -- that he was the emir, or commander, of the terrorist network -- on the grounds that prosecutors had failed to prove their case.

Instead, Ba'asyir was convicted in September of a lesser treason charge for involvement with Jemaah Islamiah and on unrelated immigration and forgery offenses. The original five-judge panel sentenced him to four years in prison, far less than prosecutors had sought.

While some Western and Asian officials objected at the time that Indonesia's determination to root out terrorism was slipping, others said the treason conviction offered some reason for optimism because the Indonesian government had only a year earlier routinely denied that an international terrorist group was active on its soil.

But in December, the initial ruling was softened further when an appeals court threw out the treason conviction and reduced Ba'asyir's sentence to three years.

Now, after the latest supreme court decision, Ba'asyir could walk free by April 4, according to Moegihardjo, a court official.

The ruling was welcomed with chants of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great), from several hundred of Ba'asyir's followers outside the courthouse.