Jakarta
The accused spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group tied to al Qaida, will be freed from an Indonesian prison within a few weeks. The Indonesian Supreme Court this week ruled that the three-year prison sentence given last fall was inappropriate because the cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, was convicted only of minor immigration violations, not of terrorism. Al Qaida operatives in captivity have said Bashir was the mastermind of the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing, which killed more than 200 people, but he was acquitted of that crime. The U.S. said this week it would provide new evidence against Bashir if Indonesia reopened the case.
