JAKARTA: An Indonesian court convicted bombmaker Umar Patek yesterday for his role in the 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people and sentenced him to 20 years’ jail, ending a decade-long probe into the atrocity.
Patek was found guilty of premeditated murder and bombmaking in connection with the suicide bombings on a nightclub and bar on the resort island, Indonesia’s deadliest act of terror.
“He’s been proven to have committed an evil conspiracy by bringing in firearms and ammunition for terror acts,” chief judge Encep Yuliardi told the West Jakarta district court after an 11-hour hearing.
“He hid information about acts of terror and he is found to have taken part in premeditated murder. We sentence Umar Patek to 20 years in jail.” Patek was found guilty of all six charges against him, some of which related to Christmas Eve bomb attacks in 2000 on churches in Jakarta. Prosecutors had sought a life sentence for Patek, sparing him the firing squad — which has executed three other key players in the Bali bombings — because he had shown remorse and apologized to victims and their families.
Patek maintained over the four-month trial that he played only a small role in the bombmaking and that he had tried to stop the operation, most of whose victims were foreigners, at the 11th hour.
After more than eight years on the run, he was arrested in January 2011 in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where US commandos four months later killed Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden in a raid.
Patek is the last key player detained in Indonesia to be tried for the attacks and the verdict closes the chapter on a long legal process.
10 die in plane crash
An Indonesian air force plane slammed into a military housing complex and ignited a huge fireball yesterday while trying to land in Jakarta, killing all seven people aboard as well as two toddlers and their nanny in a home.
The pilot, co-pilot and five trainees aboard the Fokker F-27 were on a routine training flight when it crashed into houses in a neighborhood about 1.5 kilometers (nearly a mile) from the runway where it was trying to land, Indonesian military spokesmen said.
Raging orange flames jumped several meters into the air and a huge column of black smoke billowed over the eight homes damaged in the crash in eastern Jakarta. More than 10 people were injured.
“I could hardly believe my eyes. There was a military plane that crashed and hit the houses!” said Hendra, a resident of the air force complex who goes by only one name. “At once, the situation turned into chaos. All the residents fled in panic. Women and children were screaming hysterically.” He said he helped at least five injured people, mostly with burns, to a nearby air force hospital.
Six of the people aboard the plane died instantly, and the co-pilot died later while being treated at a hospital, air force spokesman Rear Adm. Azman Yunus said.
The plane broke into two parts as it ripped through the houses and plummeted to the ground. The three people killed on the ground were two children in one of the houses, aged 2 and 6, and a woman who worked as their caretaker, air force spokesman Col. Agus Sasongko Jati said.
An official at the air force hospital said more than 10 people, including some children, were being treated for injuries.
The aircraft, which was built in 1958 and has been used by Indonesia’s air force for the past 20 years, was declared airworthy before it took off and skies were clear, said Rear Adm. Iskandar Sitompul.
Rescuers were still searching for more possible victims among the charred rubble of the burning houses, and a number of ambulances were parked inside the air force’s Rajawali Complex.
The crash comes after a Russian Sukhoi passenger jet crashed last month into an Indonesian volcano during a demonstration flight for potential buyers, killing all 45 people aboard.
