Umar Patek was the last suspect in the Bali bombings who had not yet been captured or killed. Will an attack that killed 202 people be enough of an atrocity, and will Patek’s international connections be enough of a threat to buck the recent trend of laughably light sentences for Muslims who instigate or carry out attacks? While those cases were more local in nature, even Abu Bakr Bashir only got a 15 year term. One may argue that at his advanced age, he will at least theoretically die in prison or be in his late 80s when released, but the sentence was nowhere near the life term prosecutors asked for.
Patek is to be charged with murder, but in this atmosphere of leniency, there is less of a guarantee that the punishment will fit the crime. “Bali bombing suspect Umar Patek extradited to Indonesia,” from BBC News, August 11:
One of the alleged masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings has arrived in Indonesia after being extradited from Pakistan, officials in Jakarta say.
Umar Patek, who was arrested in January in the same part of Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden was killed, is expected to be charged with murder.
Mr Patek is accused of helping to make the bombs that killed 202 people, many of them foreigners, on the island.
He is said to be the only major suspect who has not been killed or arrested.
‘Significant coup’
Mr Patek has been linked with the militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), which was blamed for the attacks.
He is believed to have worked closely with the attack’s organiser, Dulmatin, who was killed by Indonesian police last year.
Mr Patek was also reportedly involved in at least three other attacks in Indonesia – and said to have links with militant groups in the southern Philippines and al-Qaeda members in other parts of Asia.
The BBC’s Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta says the extradition is being seen as a significant coup for the anti-terror agencies in the country.
Security experts believe that he will be able to reveal links between terror cells in Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines, our correspondent says.
Officials said he would be not be charged with terrorism because the laws were enacted after the Bali bombing. He is instead expected to be charged with murder, which carries the death penalty….