Mohd Adhe Bhakti – Seven men found guilty of involvement with an outlawed armed terror group were sentenced to between five and eight years in jail by the West Jakarta District Court on Monday.
The men were charged in three separate cases related to the group's activities, including clandestine paramilitary training and public acts of terrorism.
Defendant Abu Musa a.k.a. Heri Budiman received the lightest sentence, five years, for his role in delivering money from Rochman Abdurrahman to group mastermind Dulmatin.
Rochman was sentenced to nine years in jail last week, while Dulmatin had long topped the police's most wanted list when he was shot dead during a police raid in March. Musa, who had acted as a liaison between the two, is not expected to file an appeal.
In the second case, four other defendants – Syailendra Sapta Adi, Zainal Mutaqim, Sunakim and Heru Lianto – were each sentenced to seven years in jail by the same presiding judge, Mirdin Alamsyah.
The four were charged with using firearms without a permit during a week-long paramilitary training session in the mountains of Jalin Jantho, Aceh Besar. The defendants had been practicing shooting and disassembling firearms when the training ground was raided by police and security forces earlier this year. The four men were additionally charged with retaliating against the raiding forces with gunfire.
In the third case tried at the district court on Monday, defendants Andri Marlan and Chaerul Fuadi were each sentenced to eight years in jail for their involvement in three criminal acts of terrorism in Banda Aceh.
Andri was charged with involvement in a grenade attack on the Unicef office in the capital of Aceh, where German citizen Erhard Bauer was shot and injured. His accomplice Tengku Muktar is facing a separate trial. Andri was also involved in an attack with Chaerul Fuadi where shots were fired at a house occupied by American nationals in Banda Aceh. Their third accomplice, Ismarwan, has already been sentenced to eight years in jail. Chaerul has requested more time to appeal, while Andri accepted the verdict, which was four years lighter than requested by prosecutors.
A total of 51 members of the armed Aceh group have been charged, and are either facing trial or have already been sentenced.
Officials have dubbed the group "Al Qaeda in Aceh," and have said the group was plotting to kill Westerners, including US aid workers, businesspeople and tourists. The National Police have accused firebrand Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir of being the figurehead behind the budding Al Qaeda-style terrorist network.