Jakarta – Indonesia on Thursday blasted the double standards applied by the United States and Australia in criticizing a supreme court decision earlier this week to reduce the jail sentence of militant Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and a similar court decision in Germany.

"We're sick and tired of people always second guessing us and doubting us when the same standard is not being applied to others," said Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa.

Natalegawa noted that when Germany Federal Supreme Court on March 4 overturned a 15-year jail sentence for Moroccan Monir al-Motassadeq convicted of a role in the September 11, 2001 suicide attack on the World Trade Center, no governments objected to the decision.

"When the decision was reached by the Supreme Court in Germany on March 4, overturning Motassadeq's 15 year sentence and declaring a retrial, not a single government including the United States and Australia, interpreted that as a lack of a resolve on the part of the government of Germany to fight terrorism," said Natalegawa. "Why do we not have the same treatment?"

US Secretary for Homeland Security Tim Ridge during a visit to Indonesia on Wednesday said he regretted the Indonesian Supreme Court's recent decision to reduce the jail term of Ba'asyir and expressed hopes that the cleric would eventually be brought to justice. Austrtalian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Tuesday also expressed disappointment over the court's decision.

Indonesia's Supreme Court reduced the jail sentence of Ba'asyir from three years to 18 months, effectively allowing him to leave jail next month, but refused to overturn the charges against him.

"Even in Germany, one of the reasons the decision was overturned, as was the case in Indonesia, was because of a lack of access to information obtained by the United States from various figures they have interrogated," Natalegawa told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.