The Jakarta Post
Friday, February 27, 2004

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra

A panel of judges at Medan district court sentenced on Thursday 10 members of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to between two and 10 years in jail for acts of terrorism.

Of the 10, two were top brass in GAM's Medan Deli area of operations. This was the first trial in Medan to decided the fate of leading GAM personnel.

In the hearing, which was tightly guarded by dozens of police, the panel of judges sentenced GAM Medan Deli commander Manaf Abdi to 10 years in jail and his deputy M. Yahya to six years.

Eight other GAM members were given sentences of varying length: Abdullah Sulaiman received six years, T. Said Azhar nine, Anwar Adan six, Musliadi eight, T. Mustafa Halim two, Nasrul nine, Tengku Zainal two and Tengku Abid Johan five years.

The 10 were jailed for their respective roles in a spate of bombings in Medan in 2002 and 2003. They were charged with involvement in the bombings of ASEAN Hotel International on August 17, 2002, the office of the Medan Mayor on March 31, 2002, and a gas pipe network belonging to state oil and gas company Pertamina on Jl. Medan Belawan on April 1 last year.

All the defendants were charged with violating the Law on Terrorism 2003.

No fatalities were reported in the incidents, a fact that might have led the judges to hand down more lenient sentences to the convicted bombers.

The sentences were mostly less than what had been sought by prosecutors during the course of the trial.

Manaf Abdi's sentence, for example, was much more lenient than demanded. The prosecutor had demanded a jail sentence of 20 years, but in the end Manaf was given only 10.

According to the judges, Manaf received a heavier sentence than the others because he had planned and funded the bombings.

Abid Saleh, one of the judges delivering the verdict, said that Manaf was known to have attended and led several meetings before the bombings were carried out. The defendant handed over money to the executors of the bombings, amounting to Rp 800,000. The defendant also ordered another defendant, Musliadi, to take four homemade bombs from Aceh to Belawan seaport, Medan.

After the trial was over Manaf told The Jakarta Post that he could not accept the verdict. He asserted that an Indonesian court had no right to prosecute him and the other defendants, because, he said, the bombings were part of an international dispute between the countries of Indonesia and Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.

"Only the International Court of Justice has the right to prosecute us," he said.

Prosecutions of GAM members have frequently been held in district courts across the archipelago. Those convicted have occupied cells in several parts in the country, depending on where the prosecutions were held.

Data on how many GAM members have already been prosecuted is not available, but hundreds have been arrested following the imposition of martial law in Aceh in May last year.

The Indonesian Military has estimated that GAM had some 5,000 active members.