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Top official in Indonesian terror group goes on trial in Jakarta
Abu Dujana, the self-described leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, faces the death penalty for his alleged involvement in the Bali bombings of 2002.
Continuing a largely successful effort to dismantle a militant group responsible for Southeast Asia's most deadly terrorist attacks, Indonesia put the self-described military leader of the group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) on trial Wednesday.
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Abu Dujana, 38, was arrested by the Indonesian police near his home in Central Java in June, and prosecutors allege he provided shelter to the bombmakers that carried out a devastating attack in Bali that killed over 200 people, most of them foreign tourists, in 2002.
Reuters reports that Mr. Dujana says he's innocent.
"It was said I sent explosives. The truth is I did not," he told reporters. He said the gun he carried was simply for self defence. "Self defence is an obligation for Muslims. There was no intention to use arms for terrorism," he said.
Dujana said in a video shown by police after his arrest that he had undergone rebel military training in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and in Afghanistan.
JI, believed to aspire to create an Islamic state linking Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, has in the past been linked to al Qaeda.
In addition to the charges of helping JI bombmakers Mohammed Noordin Top, still at large, and Azahari bin Husein, who was killed by the Indonesian police two years ago, Dujana is also accused of helping to drive a sectarian conflict in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi region that has left thousands dead, the AustralianAssociated Press reports.
The JI has fragmented and reorganized in the face of dozens of arrests in the past five years, the news service says.
He is also accused of keeping two caches of explosives and helping organize attacks in conflict-torn Poso, in Central Sulawesi.
Indonesia's elite antiterror squad Detachment 88 captured Dujana in Banyumas, Central Java, in June, shortly after police named him as their most-wanted terror suspect.
He was shot twice in the leg before he finally surrendered to police, the interrogation report said.
His arrest followed the discovery of two bunkers containing hundreds of kilograms of explosives and weapons beneath houses in Solo, Central Java, which police said could create a blast more powerful than the 2002 Bali bombs which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Experts believe JI has splintered and been reduced to a smaller operation because of an intense anti-terror operation in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines in recent years.
The British Broadcasting Corp. reports that the top JI leader, Zarkasih, who was captured at the same time as Dujana, will go on trial on Monday. Both men face a possible death sentence, though that outcome is unlikely.
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