Indonesian militant gets 8-year jail sentence for twin hotel bombings
By APMonday, June 14, 2010
Indonesian militant gets jail for hotel attacks
JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Indonesian court sentenced an Islamist militant to eight years in prison Monday for his involvement in last year’s deadly bombings on two luxury hotels in Jakarta and a plot to assassinate the country’s president.
The South Jakarta District Court found Amid Abdillah guilty of violating the Anti-Terror Law by helping a splinter of the Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah plan the suicide bombings that killed seven people and wounded more than 50.
Presiding Judge Sudarwin said that Abdillah, who uses several aliases, also hid information about a foiled plot to kill President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The 35-year-old Abdillah, whom prosecutors said was a driver for the late Malaysian-born terrorist mastermind Noordin Top, was the third militant to be sentenced for the July 17, 2009, bombings that ended a four-year lull in terrorist attacks in Indonesia.
The same court has earlier sentenced Saefudin Zuhri, an in-law of Top, and Aris Susanto to eight years in prison for assisting and harboring Top and two other suspects.
Top and the others suspected in the attacks were later killed in separate raids by the anti-terror squads.
The world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia has battled militants with links to al-Qaida since 2002, when extremists bombed a nightclub district on Bali island killing 202 people, most of them foreigners. Since then, a regional security crackdown has seen hundreds of militants killed or captured and convicted.
