Jakarta – The mother of an Indonesian suspected of links to international terrorism said Thursday she was "shocked" to hear he had been jailed for up to 12 years in the Philippines.
"Really? I didn't know it until you told me. Did they find the evidence?" Rukanah, 56, asked AFP by phone from the East Javan town of Madiun. "I'm shocked. I thought he would be freed because I was told they didn't find the evidence," she said.
Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, 30, was sentenced by a court in the southern Philippine city of General Santos after pleading guilty to possessing explosives. His lawyer Confesor Sansalo said he had hoped for a lesser sentence by admitting his guilt.
But after being told that her son had pleaded guilty. Rukanah said she left his fate to God "There's nothing I can do about it. If that's the case I only hope that he is strong and patient enough to face this test, which Allah has ordained to him," she said. She said her husband Muhammad Jainuri was in the Philippines to attend the trial.
The judge sentenced al-Ghozi to between 10 to 12 years in prison and imposed a fine of 200,000 pesos (3,920 US dollars). The court would decide on the exact prison term later. Al-Ghozi admitted Thursday to stashing 1,000 kilograms of TNT, 300 detonators and rolls of detonating cord in General Santos City. He was arrested in Manila in January,
Philippine authorities have said al-Ghozi was an explosives expert for the Jemaah Islamiyah extremist group, the regional allies of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. "He thought it best for him to plead guilty," said Sansalo.
The lawyer said al-Ghozi's guilty plea was not related to accusations that he was behind a series of bombings in Manila in 2000. He said there was no evidence for this charge. Al-Ghozi was also not admitting that he was the explosives expert for the Jemaah Islamiyah or behind an alleged bombing plot in Singapore, Sansalo said.
Singapore has detained 13 suspected Jemaah Islamiyah militants for the alleged plot to bomb US targets there. The Indonesian faces a separate charge of illegal possession of 17 rifles found with the explosives, the maximum sentence for which is 20 years.
Al-Ghozi once studied at an Islamic school run by Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir. Singapore and Malaysia allege that Ba'asyir is linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, a charge he denies. Ba'asyir was quesioned in January by Indonesian police about alleged terrorism links but was not detained.