Asia-Pacific News
21 Indonesians on trial over alleged terror attack plots
Aug 26, 2010, 13:14 GMT
Jakarta - Twenty-one Indonesians went on trial Thursday for their alleged involvement in terror plots.
The defendants were among more than 100 people arrested this year in a major crackdown on suspected militants allegedly seeking to set up base in Aceh province.
They were charged with planning attacks on foreigners and other targets in Indonesia and could face maximum sentences of death if found guilty.
One of them, Mukhtar, who like many Indonesians only uses one name, was accused of throwing a grenade last year into the office of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Aceh. Aid organizations there are involved in reconstruction after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which hit the province hardest.
Police this month arrested firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, for allegedly helping set up and fund the Aceh group.
Police said the organization was a merger of several militant groups, including Jemaah Islamiyah, the Islamic State of Indonesia and Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid, an Islamic outfit founded by Ba'asyir two years ago.
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