Regional terror suspect Umar Patek’s trial starts

UMAR PATEK faces six counts, including for premeditated murder, bomb-making and illegal firearms possession. INQUIRER.net file photo

JAKARTA—A key Muslim terror suspect arrested in the same Pakistani town where US commandos later killed Osama bin Laden goes on trial in Indonesia today on multiple charges, including for the 2002 Bali bombings.

Umar Patek, 45, faces six counts, including for premeditated murder, bomb-making and illegal firearms possession.

“Umar Patek is a dangerous figure wanted not only in Indonesia but also in other countries such as the Philippines. He has caused the deaths of many,” prosecutor Bambang Suharyadi told Agence France-Presse.

“The prosecutors will recommend the stiffest sentence for him,” he said. “The charges against him all carry the death penalty.”

Patek, believed to be a key member of the al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), had a $1 million bounty on his head.

He was extradited to Indonesia after being arrested in January 2011 in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where US commandos killed al-Qaida’s leader Osama bin Laden.

Counterterrorism officials would not confirm whether Patek had met with Bin Laden, but analysts said it was no coincidence the two were in the same place.

The indictment said Patek fled to the southern Philippines after the Bali bombings, joined the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front and planned to move to Afghanistan to help insurgents fighting US troops there.

He and his Filipino wife Ruqayyah Husein Luceno returned to Indonesia in June 2009 and for a year hid in east Jakarta and elsewhere, before heading to the Pakistani city of Lahore using false identities, it said.

Luceno was sentenced to 27 months in prison last month for falsifying her identity.