Posted on 12/21/2006 3:56:13 PM PST by NormsRevenge
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia overturned a terror conviction Thursday against the militant Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who served 2 1/2 years for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed more than 200 people.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he was upset for the families of the 88 Australian victims but was powerless to help. Australia, along with the United States, publicly accused the aging cleric of being a top leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror group.
"Of course it is the court system of another country and we can't change that," Howard told the Nine Network television. "But it doesn't stop us feeling upset, and I know there will be a feeling of anger on the part on the parents and loved ones, and I am feeling for them this morning very much."
Howard noted, however, that those who carried out the bombings and those who were directly responsible for them have been convicted.
Bashir, 69, who was released from prison in June, has long claimed that the government in the world's most populous Muslim nation succumbed to pressure from the West when it arrested him soon after the Bali attacks.
Bashir's son, Abdurrahmin, said his father had received word of the verdict.
"Thank God the Supreme Court has finally revealed the final truth," he said by telephone from Bashir's hometown on Java island. "He is praying now to say thanks to God that his prayers have been accepted."
Brian Deegan, an Australian lawyer whose 21-year-old son Josh died in the attack, said he had given up trying to understand Indonesian justice.
"I've steeled myself to the point that I will never understand the Indonesian judicial system," Deegan told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "I lost faith a long time ago in the entire process."
Thursday's ruling was in response to an appeal filed during Bashir's imprisonment.
Supreme Court Chief Judge German Hoediarto told reporters he had decided to quash the conspiracy conviction following testimony from 30 witnesses, but gave no more details. A written verdict will likely be made public soon.
The 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, were the first in a string of attacks in Indonesia targeting Western interests, with 2003 and 2004 blasts at the Australian Embassy and the J.W. Marriott Hotel and triple suicide bombings on Bali last year.
Bashir has always denied any wrongdoing, but admits having known several Southeast Asian militants in the 1980s and 1990s who went to Afghanistan and trained there at al-Qaida-run camps.
Since his release, he has preached in towns across the country, espousing fiercely anti-American and anti-Jewish views and promoting his campaign to transform Indonesia's secular state into an Islamic one.
Militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir smiles during a press conference at his residence in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia after his release from prison, in this Thursday, June 15, 2006 file photo. Indonesian Supreme Court overturned a terror conviction Thursday, Dec. 21, 2006, against the militant Islamic cleric who served 2 1/2 years for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed more than 200 people. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)
They will cut off the heads of the Secular Indonesians last.
Sleep well America, the next attack being planned.
Too bad Bali is infested with Muslim cockroaches. I hear it's beautiful.
Yeah, I'm sure he said he was sorry--so all is forgiven. Of course, he probably sorry he didn't kill more Westerners.
“The imam celebrated his release with hay, oats, and a lump of sugar.”
great. are we trading with them?
Apparently for the time being.
I hope the Aussies, as well as other Westerners, are maintaining their tourist boycott of Indonesia.
Damn, another jihadanazi on the loose!
He grinns because the US goverment is a paper tiger thanks to the paper hawk GWB.
He is too busy spying on grandma's bank account to go after known terrorists!
We've caught more jihadanazi's under this current President than others.
Also, President Bush does not need either his mother's or his grandmother's bank account.
Indnesia failed in this instance.
This is why we need hard core covert death squads. If anyone in Washington DC, including George Bush, gave a flying f* about the Islamic terror threat, this dog-turd would be dead by now, and made to look like a fellow sand crab did it.
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