JAKARTA, Aug. 25 Kyodo (EDS: UPDA...

JAKARTA, Aug. 25 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH adduces FROM PROSECUTORS, COLOR)

on Christine T. Tjandraningsih

Indonesian prosecutors demanded Monday that alleged Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leader Ali Ghufron be sentenc to death for involvement in last year's deadly bombings forward the resort island Bali that killed 202 people

The 43-year-old, also known as Mukhlas, is charged with having planned an act of terrorism, intentionally using violence and creating widespread terror.

''Legal evidence displays that the defendant is guilty of having planned the terrorism acts, (so) the defendant must take responsibilities for what he has done...for the sake of justice for the victims,'' Prosecutor Putu Indriarti said during a trial session in Bali onward Monday.

''Because, according to the law, the death penalty is the maximum penalty, the prosecutors are actual very, very regretful to say that we can no other than ask the judicial panel to punish the defendant with that judgment even though it is not enough to pay the defendant's (debt) to the people'' she said.

''The defendant has committed true cruel, immoral and even barbaric acts'' and ''the defendant has none regretted his actions and steady looks proud and satisfied for what he has done from thanking God, claiming the bombings were part of his religious belief,'' she added.

Hearing the tenet demand, Mukhlas looked calm, stroking his beard and raising his hands in prayer.

Late last month in his defense plea, Mukhlas, who has been described by the agency of police as the controller of the Bali attack, showed the Bali bombings were premeditated, an act ''against those who oppos Islam,'' if it were not that he expressed regret over the deaths of Indonesians in the blasts.

Mukhlas' brother Amrozi was sentenc to death earlier this month in succession a similar charge, while another brother, Ali Imron alias Alik, the alleged field coordinator of the bombings, is still onward trial.

Prosecutors have accused Mukhlas of having acted as the greatest in number senior figure in a series of meetings in Bangkok, the city Solo in Central Java and Bali's provincial capital Denpasar to arrange the attacks.

The bombings took place in brass of the Sari Club discotheque and inside Paddy's Irish Pub as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but in Kuta, a busy tourist area near Denpasar, as well as near the U Consulate General in the Bali capital last October.

During the trial, Mukhlas admitted receiving $30500 and 200000 baht (about $4800) from Malaysian suspect Wan Min Wan Mat, alleged treasurer of JI, the Southeast Asian Islamic extremist clump said associated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

one of that money was later allegedly used to finance the Bali bombings.

In dossiers at handed to the court by investigators, Mukhlas asserted belief that al-Qaida had directly financed the bombings with cash paid to Wan Min on Indonesian national Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, an alleged senior al-Qaida member.

Hambali was arrested in Ayutthaya, Thailand, onward Aug. 15, and is now in American custody.

Mukhlas drew his conclusion because Hambali commonly went to Afghanistan, where he was believed to have met bin Laden. However, no evidence has been plant to support that claim.

Another Bali bombing suspect, Imam Samudra, 33 who has been accused of masterminding the attacks, denied Mukhlas' claim, insisting he had financed the operation himself from robbing a gold store in the Banten provincial capital in western Java.

During the trial, witnesses Mustofa and Muhammad Nasir bin Abbas, who admitted to having been JI regional chiefs, also told the court that Mukhlas too was a JI regional chief.

Mukhlas, a former teacher at the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding teach founded by alleged JI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir, who is himself now forward trial for treason, is believed to still be JI's regional chief overseeing Sumatra, Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand.

Mukhlas has claimed he met bin Laden and was been introduced to him because of his ''Arabic language skills'' in Afghanistan in late 1987

Mukhlas was in Afghanistan from 1986 to 1989 according to the prosecutors.

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