Indonesia charged a cleric today with planning to use weapons to commit acts of terror, in a trial that will test the country's ability to clamp down on Islamic extremism.
Abu Bakar Bashir (72) spiritual leader of outlawed Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiah, has twice escaped terror charges.
Indonesia has won praise for largely defeating Islamic terror, but analysts and rights groups are concerned a recent spike in religious intolerance shows extremism still has a hold on the world's most populous Muslim nation.
The trial of the cleric, which opened last week but was immediately adjourned on a technicality, came only days after Muslim gangs attacked minority groups including Ahmadis and Christians.
"Defendant Abu Bakar Bashir has planned or mobilised others to illegally...use firearms, ammunition, or explosives in order to commit terrorism," prosecutor Andi Muhammad Taufik told the south Jakarta court.
Mr Bashir is also accused of funding a paramilitary training camp in westernmost Aceh province. Police said the Aceh-based group had planned to assassinate president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at an independence day ceremony last August.
Mr Bashir said whether he was acquitted or sentenced to death - the maximum penalty for the charges - was in God's hands.
"I am only defending Islam. Such allegations have been engineered and are just empty talk," he said from a holding cell. "Aceh was accused of being terrorism but Aceh was an order from God."
Mr Bashir is officially the caretaker of an Islamic boarding school on Java island but has long been considered the spiritual leader of the shadowy Jemaah Islamiah movement, which seeks to establish a Muslim caliphate across Southeast Asia.
Another prosecutor, Totok Bambang, said Mr Bashir had collected money to buy rifles and funded military activities in Aceh.
"The weapons were then used by the camp's participants to attack police," Bambang said. In September, more than a dozen gunmen on motorcycles attacked a police station in western Indonesia, killing three officers, in an apparent revenge attack after police raided a nearby Islamic militant group.
For years, Indonesia has been under pressure to jail the cleric, but under its anti-terror law it cannot prosecute those who preach hatred or conduct paramilitary training.
Security officials have said they want to amend the law, a process which is not expected to be finished soon.
Mr Bashir escaped terror charges in two previous trials that attempted to link him to the 2002 Bali bombings. He only spent time in prison for lesser charges such as immigration offences.
Analysts say that this time police have more evidence, and if Mr Bashir is found guilty he would be more likely to face a long jail term than execution.
Reuters