Bali bomb accomplices get lengthy jail sentences

Australian Broadcasting Company ^ | September 29 2003

[knighthawk]

An Indonesian court has sentenced two accomplices in the bloody Bali bombings to lengthy prison terms.

Maskur Abdul Kadir was jailed for 15 years for helping find the key suspects a house to rent and for serving as their guide during their stay in Bali before the attack on two nightclubs on October 12 last year.

Abdul Kadir's wife wept as the judges read the verdict. "My husband is innocent. He was just being used," she said.

In a separate trial, judges sentenced Hernianto to 12 years in jail for allowing his house to be used for a planning meeting in August last year.

"The defendant has been legally found guilty of taking part in a sinister conspiracy to commit a criminal act of terrorism," chief judge Ida Bagus Jagra said.

Hernianto has admitted that seven main Bali bomb suspects had met at the house where he stayed at Solo in Central Java in August 2002, two months before the bombings that killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians.

But he denied taking part in the meeting and maintained he did not know what the plotters were discussing.

However the judges agreed that his not protesting at or questioning the meeting amounted to "understanding."

Hernianto said he would appeal against the decision.

"I can't accept being accused of approving the action. Because of that I will appeal," he told the judges and shook their hands.

Two key Bali bombers have been sentenced to death and another to life in prison. A fourth top suspect called Mukhlas will hear his verdict on Thursday and prosecutors are seeking a death sentence.

Several accomplices have received long prison terms.

[knighthawk]

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