Mohd Adhe Bhakti – Three Islamic terrorists were each sentenced to between seven and nine years in prison on Wednesday for their roles in the suicide bombing of a West Java mosque last year.
Achmad Basuki, the younger brother of the suicide bomber, Muhammad Syarif, was sentenced by the Tangerang District Court to nine years in prison.
The court, presided over by Judge Syamsul Bahri, ruled that Basuki was involved in planning the attack on the mosque at the district police headquarters in Cirebon, West Java, on April 15. He was also judged to have tried to conceal key evidence in the subsequent investigation.
Thirty people, mostly policemen and including the Cirebon police chief, were wounded when Syarif, 32, detonated explosives strapped to his body as worshippers gathered for Friday noon prayers. Syarif was the sole fatality.
Another of those convicted on Wednesday was Arif Budiman, who was ruled to have helped Syarif and Basuki plan the attack. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. Prosecutors had been seeking 10-year sentences for both Basuki and Arif.
The third defendant, Mardiansyah, a.k.a. Abu Maryam, was also given seven years for his indirect role in selling firearms to the terrorist cell to which Syarif belonged. "It was his actions that allowed the terrorist cell to come into possession of firearms," Judge Pudji Tri Rahadi said.
Mardiansyah was a former employee at a gun shop in Depok owned by Sofyan Tsauri, a former police officer.
Sofyan was convicted last year, prior to the Cirebon bombing, for supplying weapons to a militant training camp in Aceh. After his arrest, Mardiansyah sold off his remaining stock of weapons to various buyers, including Dzulkifli Lubis, a middleman for the Cirebon terror cell.
Wednesday's verdicts were meant to be handed down last week, along with those of Dzulkifli and nine others who got between five and eight years in prison for their involvement with the Cirebon terror cell. It was delayed to this week to address a minor discrepancy over the inclusion in the list of evidence of a motorcycle seized from the suspects.
The Tangerang District Court is now preparing to try those arrested in connection with the Umar bin Khatab Islamic boarding school in Bima, West Nusa Tenggara, which was raided last July on suspicion of planning attacks on the police. Suspicions about the school were piqued by an explosion there, reportedly in a bomb-making class, that killed the school treasurer.