More than 19 years after the attack on two nightclubs on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali, a court on Wednesday sentenced a senior member of the terrorist organization responsible to 15 years in prison.

Aris Sumarsono, better known by his alias Zulkarnaen, is said to have held a key position in the Islamist Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which planned and carried out the 2002 attack that killed 202 people.

For years he had been one of the most wanted Indonesians and was only arrested in December 2020 in the Lampung region on the island of Sumatra.

In court, he admitted that the attack was carried out by a cell of the terrorist organization that he was leading at the time.

However, he denied having been directly involved in the planning.

Till Fähnders

Political correspondent for Southeast Asia.

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However, the judges saw it as proven that he had consented to a terrorist attack on Bali and was therefore guilty.

In addition, his terrorist cell is also responsible for other acts, including an attack on the Philippine embassy two years before the Bali attacks and bombings on several churches.

His cell, which he said was more militarily organized like a militia, also fueled the ethnic-religious acts of violence on the islands of Sulawesi and the Moluccas.

The JI, then one of the most active terrorist organizations in Southeast Asia, once worked closely with al-Qaeda.

According to the United States, Zulkarnaen was one of a handful of members who had direct ties to the international terrorist network. Like many senior JI members, he has attended training camps in Afghanistan and the Philippines. Prior to his arrest, Washington offered a $5 million bounty for his capture under its Rewards for Justice program.

Due to his prominent position in the terror network, he will probably have to serve at least a large part of his sentence.

A year ago, Indonesia released the spiritual leader of the JI, Abu Bakr Bashir, early from years of imprisonment because of his old age and poor health.

The 82-year-old Bashir, who is considered one of the masterminds of the Bali attacks, was also sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2011 on other allegations.