Indonesia's Supreme Court has halved a three-year prison sentence imposed on militant Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, a court official said.
The ruling means that Bashir, who is said by foreign governments to have led the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group, could be free within weeks or months.
Supreme Court spokesman Joko Upoyo said the court had reduced Bashir's sentence for immigration offences and forgery to one and a half years. The time he has spent in detention will be deducted. It was Bashir's second legal victory after an appeal court last November cleared him of plotting to topple the government through terrorism.
Bashir's lawyers were to discuss the ruling later in the day. "The question is when he should be freed according to the law. Because we know that they [authorities] have been fooling around with his detention," said one of them, Mahendradatta.
He said one letter stated Bashir's detention period officially began on October 20, 2002 and another on November 2. Mahendradatta said lawyers would discuss asking for a judicial review of the case.
"We are not focusing on how long the jail term is but on the legal basis for the decision. If the legal basis is wrong we won't accept it even if Bashir has to serve only one day," he told AFP.
The Indonesian government for months in 2002 failed to move against Bashir despite claims by Singapore that he was linked to terrorism.
The cleric was arrested in a hospital bed in October 2002, a week after the Bali nightclub bombings which killed 202 people and which are blamed on JI.
When his trial began in April 2003, prosecutors accused him of heading JI, authorising the network's church bombings in Indonesia which killed 19 people on Christmas Eve 2000 and plotting to blow up US targets in Singapore.
Last September a district court convicted Bashir of taking part in a JI plot to overthrow the government but said there was no proof he had led the network. It jailed him for four years for treason and for immigration-related offences.
An appeal court in November overturned the treason conviction but ruled that Bashir must serve three years for immigration offences and forging documents.
Bashir, 65, has always denied he is linked to terrorism and said the claims are part of a US and Jewish smear campaign against Islam.
He is co-founder of the al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school in Central Java from which numerous convicted terrorists including some of the Bali bombers graduated.
Sidney Jones, of the International Crisis Group of political analysts, said there was "no doubt" that Bashir at one time led Jemaah Islamiyah.
"But I also don't think he ever had the deep involvement in operations and tactical decision-making that someone like Hambali had," said Jones, an expert on JI.
She said the district court's failure in September 2003 to prove Bashir was JI chief resulted from poor prosecution work which failed to make use of available evidence, the fear of judges for their own safety and a very good defence.