Prosecutors urge jail for Bashir

JAKARTA - Indonesian prosecutors urged a court yesterday to sentence cleric Abu Bakar Bashir to 15 years in jail on charges including treason over his leadership of a militant Muslim group blamed for a string of terror attacks.

Scores of Bashir's supporters wearing Muslim skull-caps were silent as the demand was read. Earlier, they had defied a police order and cried "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) as Bashir walked to his seat in the tightly guarded courtroom.

Prosecutors charged Bashir with treason for trying to overthrow the Government using Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian network accused of carrying out the Bali blasts and now the prime suspect in the Jakarta car bomb attack.

Bashir had faced life in jail. Key suspects on trial for the Bali bombings face the death penalty.

Bashir is also on trial for approving church bombings that killed 19 people across the world's most populous Muslim nation in 2000. He has also been linked to an aborted plot to kill President Megawati Sukarnoputri when she was Vice-President.

The cleric denies the charges and insists that Jemaah Islamiyah - seen as the Southeast Asian arm of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda - does not exist. In an interview with El Shinta radio before the trial began, Bashir blamed the Bali and Marriott attacks on the CIA.

- REUTERS

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