JAKARTA: An Indonesian court on Wednesday sentenced the wife of the alleged mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings to 27 months in jail for falsifying her identity.
Philippine national Ruqayyah Husein Luceno was arrested in Pakistan early last year with her husband Umar Patek in the town where Osama bin Laden was subsequently killed by US special forces.
The defendant was “found guilty legally and convincingly” of falsifying her identity in order to acquire her Indonesian passport, chief judge Suharjono told East Jakarta district court.
“She falsified her birth place from Mindanao in the Philippines to an Indonesian address. She also used a fake name,” the judge said as anti-terror police forces guarded the courtroom. Some stood behind Luceno’s chair.
With the passport, Patek and the defendant managed to fly from Jakarta to Pakistan, where they stayed for five months before the arrest in January 2011.
The sentence, which can be appealed, was lighter than the four years sought by prosecutors in a previous hearing. There was no mention of any terror charges in the indictment.
Wearing a black Muslim burqa, or veil, Luceno remained calm and silent during the hearing.
Police have said Patek will be charged with premeditated murder over the deaths of the 202 people, mostly Western tourists, who were killed in the 2002 Bali bombings. It was not clear when his trial would begin.
In a re-enactment in October, Patek demonstrated to police how he built the explosives at a boarding house on the resort island, and along with accomplices loaded them onto a vehicle.
Patek has also confessed to carrying out a series of church bombings in Indonesia on Christmas eve 2000, police said.
Born in 1970, Patek is a suspected member of the al Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
While on the run Patek was one of Asia's most wanted terror suspects and had a $1 million bounty on his head under the US rewards for justice programme.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
The question is what were they doing in Pakistan? Is Pak safe haven for all the terrorists? :@ Thanks to non civilian establishments :S