Cleric gets off easy

last updated 8 January 2015

Jakarta

An Indonesian court has sentenced radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir to four years in prison for treason, far short of the 15 years prosecutors sought. Bashir was accused of being the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al Qaida–affiliated militant group responsible for the bombing of a Bali disco that killed 202 people, many of them Australians, last October. But the judge said prosecutors managed to prove only that Bashir was linked to the group, not that he was its leader. The relatively light sentence makes it unlikely that the U.S. will hand over other suspected Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists, such as the recently arrested Hambali, to Indonesia for trial. Bashir said he would appeal the sentence. “Remain orderly,” he told supporters outside the courtroom, “and be careful of provocateurs from America.”