Baysir’s lawyers press for dropping all charges against him

By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Correspondent

KUALA LUMPUR, December 2 (IslamOnline.net) – Jakarta High Court quashed on Monday, December 1, a treason conviction against Abu Bakar Baysir, leader of the Mujahideen Council of Indonesia (MMI), curtailing an earlier imprisonment term against him to three instead of four years.

On Tuesday, September 2, a court said it found Baysir guilty of treason but found no evidence he led a plot to overthrow the government of Megawati Sukarnoputri nor that he was the leader of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) group.

The Jakarta court, however, upheld Bashir’s conviction on lesser charges of forging identity documents and reduced his jail sentence from four to three years, reported the Antara news agency.

His lawyers, who maintained their client should have been released at the end of his current detention warrant on Monday, said they will appeal the new rulings.

Voicing dissatisfaction, lawyer Ahmad Michdan said he would take the issue to the Supreme Court to have all charges dropped.

Other members of Bashir’s the defense team were quoted as saying they would report his unlawful detention to the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

Baysir has always stressed his innocence on all the charges, accusing the Indonesian government of bowing to pressures from Singapore and the U.S. to build a case against him.

"Just because I am fighting for Islamic Shariah law I am accused of subversion," a calm-looking Bashir had said after the first court ruling.

Greeted

The news of clearing Baysir was met with satisfaction from members of his MMI, which comprises more than 35,000 members of different Islamic groups in the world’s largest Muslim country.

After receiving a copy of the Jakarta court ruling, Bashir said a suitable legal recourse would surely be found.

"I don’t know what that will be yet. I’m just handing it over to the lawyers," added the aging leader.

Bashir is very popular in Indonesia despite the charges leveled against him, and his release from jail in less than three years would be a large victory against a regime that is seen to be behind his tribulations.

The judges reached the new ruling prior to Eid Al-Fitr week-long holiday, which began on Monday 24 November, but it was only made public on Monday, December 1.