"I`m (financially) unable to buy firearms." Baashir said on the sidelines of the proceedings of his case at the South Jakarta District Court on Thursday. Hundreds of Baashir`s followers staged protehttp://ias.antara.net.id:7778/images/antara/ico_edit.gifsts against his "unfair" trial in front of the court under heavy police watch.
Baashir said all the charges against him were purposely engineered by the police`s 88 special detachment (Densus 88), the elite anti-terror detachment.
"Moreover, I didn`t know Dulmatin ," he said of the suspected terrorist killed in a police ambush at Ciputat, South Jakarta.
In his 90-page defense statement, Baashir said that all the charges had been made up in a way to annihilate him, and if it had been possible, to kill him. Therefore Baashir requested the national police head, prosecutors general and chairman of the Supreme Court to acquit him of all charges.
The prosecutors had in earlier proceedings charged Baashir of raising more than 140,000 US dollars for a new paramilitary group called the Aceh-wing of Al Qaeda in the northern most tip of Sumatra island, which was discover in February last year.
The money was used for purchasing various types of firearms and munitions, includine nine Armalite (AR)-15 assault rifles, four Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947 (AK)-47s, two Avtomat Kalashnikova 1958 (AK)-58s, six revolvers and one fabrique Nationalle Browning (FN) Browning.
In addition, according to the prosecutors` charges, the money was also used to buy 19,900 bullets and bullet magazines for those firearms.
If convicted in this case, Baashir could face death penalty.
(KR-VFT/HAJM/A014)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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