The 15-year jail sentence for internationally known Abu Bakar Ba'asyir definitely fails to satisfy both his supporters and those who demanded maximum punishment for the firebrand Muslim cleric whom they hold responsible for brutal terrorist attacks in the country.
But whatever our stance toward the South Jakarta Court's verdict on Thursday, we should respect it.
As a democratic nation, the Indonesian people should not take justice into their hands the way the terrorists perpetrated their barbaric acts. Although it may not be ideal, the draconian antiterrorism law gives terror suspects access to lawyers and justice.
Under the New Order, for example, they might be incarcerated for the rest of their life without trial, or endure physical and mental abuse before their release. By the US standard, they might be isolated in Guantanamo or other secluded, maximum security detention centers all over the world.
Ba'asyir, 73, was found guilty of planning and or encouraging other people to intentionally use violence or threats of violence to create terror and fear among the people, and therefore escaped a life-time jail sentence.
Touted as a spiritual leader of the Jamaah Islamiyah terror network, which operates in the country, Ba'asyir was arrested in the wake of a police raid on a military-style training ground in Aceh early last year.
It is not the first time Ba'asyir was convicted of a crime or act of terror. He was jailed in 2003 for treason and violating the immigration law, but was released in 2004. In 2005, he was found guilty of plotting a bomb attack on J.W. Marriott Hotel in 2003 and the Bali bombing in 2002, but was freed in June 2006.
The humane side of the Indonesian antiterrorism law requires people charged with acts of terror to stand trial and allows them to defend themselves. Many of them were granted remission and could breathe the fresh air of freedom after several years in prison.
Since the 9/11 attack in 2001, Indonesia has executed only three convicted terrorists – Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Ali Ghufron – merely due to the gravity of the crime they perpetrated. The trio was found guilty of plotting and executing carnage in Bali in 2002, which killed 202 people, injured hundreds of others, inflicted trauma on survivors and laid waste to the island's tourism industry.
Perhaps because of its aim to treat terror suspects fairly, the existing antiterrorism law has come under constant criticism. The law is considered too lenient to eradicate, let alone prevent acts of terrorism, which in Pakistan and Afghanistan kill dozens of people almost every day.
The most regretful consequence of the fair war on terror in Indonesia is repeated acts of terror committed by ex-convicts, as in the case of Ba'asyir. But this has something to do with the de-radicalization program which remains far from perfect, rather than the legislation itself.
Given the "merciful" antiterrorism law, impatient security officials are demanding revision of the legislation, which human rights campaigners fear will reinstate the past state or terror.
Indeed, improvement is needed in the law, but it is enforcement that always counts. Let us bear in mind, therefore, that law is not meant for revenge, but to prevent others from making the same mistakes.
As Sir Francis Bacon put it, revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.