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Muhammad Jibriel Abdul Rahman - Source: Reuters -
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An Indonesian man raised money in Saudi Arabia to finance suicide bomb attacks last July at two luxury hotels in Jakarta, prosecutors told a court on Tuesday.
Muhammad Jibriel Abdul Rahman, 25, had links with Noordin Mohammad Top, who headed a violent wing of regional militant group Jemaah Islamiah, the South Jakarta court was told.
Indonesia says Top planned the hotel attacks, which killed 11 and injured 53, as well as several other bombings in Indonesia. He was killed in a police shoot-out in September.
"The defendant from August 2008 to August 2009 ... has given assistance to perpetrators of terror attacks by hiding information about terror crimes," prosecutor Firmansyah said. The maximum penalty is 15 years in jail for such crimes.
Prosecutors also said Rahman had sent an email to a brother who was living in Saudi Arabia, in which he said he had met Top in August 2008, and discussed the need to raise 100 million rupiah for their attacks. He also wrote about establishing an Asian branch of al Qaeda.
Rahman later went on a pilgrimage to Mecca where he raised the money.
He had studied at a Jemaah Islamiah boarding school in Malaysia in the late 1990s, and had Top as his psychology teacher, prosecutors said.
Rahman, who owns a radical website called Arrahmah, entered the courtroom shouting "Allahu Akbar", or "God is greatest", where he was greeted with the same words by his supporters who wore Islamic tunics and skullcaps. Some wore vests emblazoned with the word "Mujahidin"."
Rahman was due to respond to the charges in court next week.
Jemaah Islamiah, which wants to create an Islamic state linking Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, was responsible for a string of attacks that killed hundreds of civilians, including the bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta in 2004 and of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003.
In an interview with Reuters, Indonesia's elite anti-terror detachment 88 chief said that while the risk of such terror attacks was now lower following Top's death and Indonesia's crackdown on his group, it was still possible for new leaders to emerge and plan attacks.
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