Posted on 11/30/2003 11:59:00 PM PST by HAL9000
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- An Indonesian appeals court has cleared militant leader Abu Bakar Bashir of treason and reduced his sentence from four years to three, court officials said Monday.The court upheld Bashir's conviction on lesser charges of forging identity documents.
Bashir was convicted in September of treason in a plot to overthrow Indonesia's secular government but cleared of charges of being the leader of the al-Qaida linked Southeast Asia terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.
The decision was widely criticized by foreign governments who maintain that Bashir is the spiritual head of the group, which has been blamed for both last year's Bali bombings that killed 202 people and the Aug. 5 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 12.
A senior court official and Bashir defense attorney Achmad Michdan said Monday that an appeals court had thrown out the treason conviction. Michdan added that his team was not satisfied with the decision and wanted all charges dropped.
He said he would appeal to the Supreme Court
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