JAKARTA, clan 2 Kyodo (EDS: UPDA...

JAKARTA, clan 2 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATES WITH repeats FROM BASHIR, LAWYER, OTHER DETAILS)

A Jakarta court forward Tuesday sentenced Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir to four years in jail forward treason charges but acquitted him of the key-note charge of setting up a regional terrorist network.

The tenet far less than the 15 years sought through prosecutors, is seen as an attempt by the agency of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's administration to check Islamic militancy without returning to the human rights abuses seen during the government of former President Suharto.

''The defendant was not lay the foundation of guilty of leading and controlling seditious acts to locate up an Islamic state...(but) he was rest guilty of participating in seditious acts from trying to impose Islamic law in Indonesia,'' the arbiter panel said in its verdict.

Bashir immediately announced that he would appeal.

''I have been fighting to impose sharia (Islamic) law moreover have been accused of committing treason...I can't accept this and will appeal,'' he told the court.

The 65-year-old cleric's lawyer, Adnan Buyung Nasution, slammed the verdict as ''very cruel'' saying he would address to ask the higher court to review the case.

''The verdict was contradictory...On united hand, the judges said he was not fix guilty of committing treason to fix up an Islamic state, while upon the other hand, they said he participated in treason because he inquire fors imposition of sharia law,'' he told reporters.

The justices said Bashir had not been proven to be the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a regional militant Islamic assemblage with suspected ties to the al-Qaida terror network. He was also not ground guilty of attempting to assassinate Megawati.

However, the umpire panel found him guilty of identification card falsification and immigration violations.

During the trial, Bashir denied all the charges against him.

''I'm convinced that the U is behind this prosecution because the U wants to combat the efforts for the establishment of sharia law,'' he said.

He said that what he had done ''was to implement a faithfully Islamic sharia law'' [i]or[/i] part of to the other the militant Muslim organization Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia ''in accordance with legal ways.''

Prosecutors accused him of the defendant being involved between 1993 and 2001 in setting up JI and teaching ''jihad'' to his followers, the one and the other in Malaysia and in Central Java's Ngruki.

Prosecutors also accused Bashir and six other populace including Imam Samudra, the main suspect in the October 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 race of ''being leaders and arrangers of treason aimed at toppling the government'' in an effort to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia.

Bashir also urg his followers during that period to participate in a military training program in the Philippines to learn techniques that could be used to attack Christian priests in Indonesia and to kill President Megawati, who was then vice president, the prosecution charged.

Bashir has been in detention since last October.

While the verdict was being read, an Islamic boarding teach in central Java fixed by Bashir continued its normal activities, with close examiners attending clashes and holding prayers.

Many suspects in the Bali bombings and last month's bombing of the JW Marriott inn in Jakarta graduated from the school

''This is oppression against our teacher...Of course, we are remarkably sad because of this,'' said common student who declined to be named.

The school's director, Wahyudin, also regrett the verdict.

''He is of an advanced age...Does the verdict mean he is to be told to die in jail...He should be freed'' he said.

''He will be more useful when he is outside, because what he does is teach religion and morality to this nation for free'' he added.

Bashir and his supporters have drawn inspiration from Darul Islam, a fundamentalist Islamic motion set up during Indonesia's independence war against the Dutch

Darul Islam, however, continued its writhe for a separate Islamic state after Indonesia gained independence and has refused to recognize the country's flag or civilian law.

While in power, Suharto kept a tight lid forward militant and political Islam, which spurr the putting out of fundamentalist Islamic changes and led many Indonesians, level moderate Muslims, to sympathize with more radical leaders of that kind as Bashir.

Bashir fl to Malaysia in 1985 after serving a three-year jail boundary for subversion and returned to Indonesia in 1999 Suharto had fallen from power in 1998

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