Well, some sense has prevailed, at least in Abu Bakar Bashir's
case:
Indonesia gives no holiday sentence cut to
Bashir
JAKARTA : Nov 3 (AFP) - Indonesia did not grant a sentence
reduction to jailed hardline Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir to mark
a major Islamic holiday on Thursday, in a move likely to please
Australia but spark displeasure at home.
Bashir was handed a 30-month sentence in March for his role in the
2002 Bali bombings but was granted a more than four-month reduction
in August, provoking furore in Australia, home to 88 of the 202
people killed.
However, the 67-year-old cleric's name was not on a list of
prisoners from his jail whose prison term was cut to mark
Thursday's Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
"Ustadz (teacher) was not given any sentence cut, but he accepts it
readily," cleric Fauzan Al-Anshori from the Indonesian Mujahidin
Council (MMI), which Bashir chairs, told AFP after visiting him at
Jakarta's Cipinang jail.
Australia had aired protests against any plan by Indonesia to
reduce the sentence of Bashir, who is accused by some foreign
governments of being the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah
Islamic militant group, blamed for the 2002 Bali blasts as well as
a string of other attacks in Southeast Asia.
Al-Anshori said that Bashir was unsurprised at the decision and
called on Muslims, who are likely to react angrily to the move, to
accept it.
"He also condemned the Australian regime, which continues to
intervene in the affairs of the Indonesian state," Al-Anshori
said.
Deputy chairman of the hardline MMI, Irfan Suryahadi Awwas, told
AFP that the council would meet as soon as possible to decide what
action to take, such as protesting to parliament or possibly
lodging a complaint with the Constitutional Court.
"I do not see how the Ustadz violated jail rules. If there were no
violations, then it is certainly a political decision," he said,
noting that sentence cuts are usually only not awarded if prisoners
misbehave.
"If a foreign government can intervene in our legal system, where
is our pride?" he said, referring to Australia's objections.
Bashir was arrested a week after the Bali bombings and first put on
trial the following year, but the terrorism charges were thrown
out. However he was then found guilty of immigration offences and
jailed.
Police rearrested him in April last year as he left prison after
serving the immigration sentence.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer raised the sensitive
issue of remissions with his Indonesian counterpart Hassan Wirayuda
earlier this month during a visit to Bali.
Wirayuda said afterwards that he had assured Downer no further cuts
would be given this year, but Indonesia's justice minister Hamid
Awaluddin later said that they would go ahead as normal in line
with the country's laws.
Bromo Setiono, the head of the Kerobokan jail in Bali, told AFP he
was waiting for a response from Jakarta to his request that 18
militants imprisoned on the island for minor roles in the 2002
bombings receive remissions.
Three of the plotters are on death row elsewhere, as are two others
jailed for life, who are ineligible for the cuts.
Under a remissions decree, prisoners who have served six months to
one year are eligible for a one-month sentence cut and those
serving more than one year could get two months struck off.
Bashir has condemned the latest Bali attacks of October 1, which
claimed 20 lives and those of three suicide bombers, saying that
bombings in non-combat zones would only claim innocent victims. -
AFP/de
