Indonesian student faces prison for designing terrorist website

May 30, 2007, 10:15 GMT

Jakarta - Indonesian prosecutors on Wednesday demanded an eight-year prison sentence for a university student accused of designing a now-banned website that instructed extremists how to carry out terrorist attacks in Jakarta, local media reported.

Chief prosecutor Suroto told the Semarang district court in Central Java province that Agung Prabowo, alias Max Fiderman, 24, designed the site with the help of an accomplice, Abdul Aziz, the Detik.com online news service reported.

'What he did can be categorized as helping terrorists; therefore, we demand the court hand down an eight-year sentence to the defendant,' Suroto said.

In September, Bali's Denpasar District Court sentenced Aziz, 30, to eight years in prison for helping design the site, which also suggested prime locations for attacks against Westerners in Jakarta.

Prabowo's attorney, Syaiful, rejected the accusation against his client, saying the defendant is a professional web designer who was paid to build the site.

'He is an expert in web design and got paid for that,' Syaiful was quoted as saying. 'It doesn't mean that he is part of the terrorist network.'

The defence team is to present its case beginning June 6.

Indonesia has taken a hard line against terrorism, having been the victim of several deadly attacks in recent years blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a regional terrorist network linked to al-Qaeda. Those attacks have killed more than 250 people.

The attacks include the simultaneous bombings of dozens of Christian churches in 2000, suicide and car bombings on the resort island of Bali in 2002 and 2005, and the bombings of the JW Marriot Hotel in Jakarta in 2003 and the Australian Embassy in the capital in 2004.

Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country, but its secular government, with Western help, has hunted down and killed dozens of JI militants and arrested hundreds more.