"I think the difference is that the Indonesians have been scrupulous about abiding by the rule of law," said Jones.

JAKARTA — Abiding by the rule of law, treating suspects humanely and winning the minds and hearts of its own people, Indonesia has managed to tighten the noose around potential terrorists after the Bali bombings unlike the US whose heavy-handed and inhumane anti-terror policies have backfired in the wake of the September 11 attacks, experts say.

"I think the difference is that the Indonesians have been scrupulous about abiding by the rule of law," Southeast Asia director for the International Crisis Group Sidney Jones told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, September 5.

"That is, not engaging in wider spread arbitrary arrests, not holding people for long periods without charge, abiding by existing criminal procedural standards, bringing people to trial in trials fully open to the public and letting them go when they have served their sentences."

The 2002 blasts on Indonesia's palm-fringed island of Bali claimed the lives of 202 people, mostly Australian holidaymakers, in the bloodiest terrorist attack to follow the 9/11.

Three years later, 20 bystanders died at three eateries on the same Indonesian resort by suicide bombers.

Indonesia, however, surprised many observers by swiftly tracking down the main militants and putting them on trial.

On Tuesday, an Indonesian court sentenced a high-school teacher to eight years in prison for his role in last year's triple bombings.

Indonesian courts have yet to hand down verdicts in the cases of three other men accused of taking part in the bombings.

In total, the world's most populous Muslim country has arrested and tried more than 30 members of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional network, said to have close Al-Qaeda links. Three key bombers are on death row awaiting execution.

In contrast, the US has secured only one conviction over the 9/11 bombings.

A US federal jury on Wednesday, May 3, slapped Zacarias Moussaoui with a life sentence, in a blow to the Bush administration which sought a death sentence.

Three of the 12 jurors found that the role of Moussaoui, a 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan origin, in the 9/11 operation, if any, was minor.

Osama bin Laden, America's number one public enemy, refuted claims that Moussaoui or detainees in the notorious Guantanamo detention camp had links to the 9/11 attacks.

"No intelligent person doubts (the confession) is a result of the pressure put upon him for the past four and a half years."

Credibility

Experts said that terror suspects are treated very humanely by Indonesian police.

Indonesian police have also convinced a public -- inclined to believe the attacks were the plot of anti-Islamic foreign governments, or that Indonesians were incapable of launching such a well-planned operation on their own -- that the threat was real.

To do so, they allowed Amrozi, one of the key 2002 Bali bombers, to speak to the media while in custody.

His laughter and carefree demeanor outraged many relatives of the victims.

"They had a purpose: to show they hadn't coerced a confession out of him. He willingly spoke and that changed a lot of minds in the country," Jakarta-based security analyst Ken Conboy told AFP.

"The way police handled the original arrests helped people realize that there was a terrorist network. They overcame their collective denial."

Working with counterparts from around the world, the government campaign erased the top layers of the Jemaah Islamiyah, leaving only lower level, ad hoc cells operational, Conboy said.

Following the 9/11 attacks, the US adopted a unilateral approach in addressing terror threats, behaving like the world's cop.

It is now holding hundreds of suspects indefinitely without trial in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and secret CIA detention centers across the world.

Five years after spending billions of dollars on security and invading two Muslim countries as part of the so-called war on terror, many Americans, according to pundits, still feel vulnerable and caught between the rock of terrorism and the hard place of losing long-cherished personal freedoms.

Humane Treatment

Hundreds of Muslims are being held in Guantanamo incommunicado amid reports of torture and abuses.

Indonesian police have also a clean human rights record in the country's fight against terrorists, treating detainees humanely and with respect.

"I don't think anybody would have expected a country that had as bad a human rights record under Suharto and a problematic legal system would have done as well with handling terrorism cases," Jones said.

Sarlito Wirawan, a senior psychologist from the University of Indonesia who has worked with police on cases, said police took a unique approach in dealing with terrorists after their arrests.

"After they are in detention, they are treated very humanely. Police chat with them, pray with them... They are not pressured under a barrage of questioning," he said.

"This approach has helped several of the suspects, if not change their views radically, at least make them more cooperative."

And due to tight family and friendship ties, just a few helpful suspects have been significant, he added.

"This has made it easy for the police. Once a suspect is caught it is relatively easy to follow the thread and catch the others."

Thousands of Muslims and Arabs were rounded up and questioned in the US in the weeks and months following the September attacks.

Some of the detainees have sued the US government after their release for inhumane and degrading treatment and a total blackout of communications in detention centers on the US soil.

The US government agreed in February to pay $300,000 to settle an illegal detention lawsuit brought by an Egyptian man who was among hundreds of Muslims rounded up in New York after 9/11.

And the abuses are not limited to prisons on US soil.

In a report entitled "Ending Secret Detention", the American Human Rights Watch had said the US has more than 24 world detention camps, at least half of them operate in total secrecy, where the abuse of detainees is "inevitable."

The watchdog cited "reliable reports" of acts of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by US military or civilian personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq.