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Patek Tells Court He Made 2002 Bali Bombs but Didn’t Plan Terror Attacks
Agus Triyono | February 21, 2012

Umar Patek waving to cameras as he arrives at his trial at a West Jakarta court on Monday. Patek said in court that he made the bombs that exploded in Bali in 2002 but denied planning the attack.  Reuters Photo Umar Patek waving to cameras as he arrives at his trial at a West Jakarta court on Monday. Patek said in court that he made the bombs that exploded in Bali in 2002 but denied planning the attack.  Reuters Photo
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Kangkung
12:58pm Feb 26, 2012

Off course the bomb is for humanitarian purposes....what a stupid argument

devine
9:29pm Feb 21, 2012

BL; your most probably right but it looks and feels utterly stupid...

BajingLoncat
8:12pm Feb 21, 2012

The smiling and friendliness is supposedly to indicate that police have not beaten a confession out of the suspect, and that prosecutors are going to be fair.

facepalm
3:29pm Feb 21, 2012

@TGIF: spot on question - you beat me to it. Someone offered up the explanation ages ago that it implies proceedings will be dealt with in a civilised and respectable manner. Personally I'm not so sure on this but it's not hard to understand why people might get a tad upset when pictures of a smiling terrorist shaking hands with a smiling prosecution hit the international press. Then upset turns to anger when a sentence of 4 years is handed down...

AlexBrehm
3:10pm Feb 21, 2012

Patek Logic: I construct bombs not to use it.

General Motors just produce cars not to sell and drive with them.

May be the indonesian justice will believe him. Do not punish Patek hard, because he has not stolen sandals.

Terror suspect Umar Patek admitted on Monday to building the bombs used in the 2002 Bali bombings but denied that he was one of the masterminds behind the suicide attacks.

Addressing the West Jakarta District Court, Patek said that he was only “assembling the bombs.”

Prosecutors have accused Patek of violating the 2003 anti-terror law, but his lawyer, Ashludin Hatjani, said the law could not be applied retroactively.

“That is clearly illegal, meaning the prosecutors applied the retroactive principle in this case and the Constitutional Court has clearly said this could not be done,” Ashludin said.

The defense lawyer also rejected the prosecutor’s accusation that his client violated Article 340 of the Criminal Code on premeditated murder.

“The defendant has only constructed [bombs], not planned them,” Ashludin said.

The article, Ashludin said, concerned planning an act of terrorism, “but in the indictment of the prosecutor, there was no involvement in the planning or implementation of the action. He was only summoned by Iman Samudra to come to Bali and take part in constructing the bombs.” Samudra was one of the three key masterminds of the Bali bombing.

After the trial, Ashludin quoted his client as denying that he was in Pakistan in 2011 to meet with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Patek was arrested in Pakistan in January while Bin Laden was slain in a raid there a few months later.

The lawyer said his client had denied taking part in testing three M-16 rifles used for a paramilitary training program in the forest of Aceh that had been raided by the police in February 2010, as prosecutors have alleged.

“The defendant never took part in testing those weapons. He was there at the site, but he was only there to attend a wedding,” Ashludin said.

He also said that Patek insisted he never took part in the paramilitary training there.

Prosecutors at the West Jakarta District Court have accused Patek of multiple counts of terrorism, murder and document fraud for his role in building the car bomb that killed 202 people, most of them foreigners, at a nightclub in Bali’s Kuta area in October 2002.

He was also indicted for his role in a series of coordinated bomb attacks on churches across Indonesia during Christmas Eve in 2000 that killed 18 people, as well as for concealing information about a militant training camp that was uncovered in the Aceh foothills in early 2010.

Patek is the last of the Bali bombers to stand trial. Samudra and brothers Amrozi and Ali Ghufron were convicted and executed. Ali Imron is serving a life sentence.