Bali Bombing Suspect On Trial in Indonesia

The lawyer for Umar Patek, the Indonesian man accused of being one of the masterminds behind the deadly terrorist attacks in Bali in 2002, asserted his client was not directly involved in planning the bombings.

Patek, 44, is currently facing several charges in an Indonesian court, including premeditated murder, which could lead to a death sentence if convicted.

Asludin Hatjani, his attorney, said Patek admits helping to assemble the bombs, but that he did not know what they would be used for.

Patek was only in transit in Indonesia and was not involved in training of firearms, said Hatjani. He was there to attend a wedding and he didn't even see the firearms.”

The Bali bombings killed 202 people, including many foreign tourists, including 88 Australians.

Three other masterminds of the Bali bombings, Imam Samudra, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Ali Ghufron, were executed in 2008.

Hatjani said in court that charges filed by the prosecution are vague and far from the truth and also declared that the anti-terrorism law enacted by the Indonesian government 2003 cannot be applied retroactively to the attacks from the prior year.

Patek also faces charges of illegal weapons possession; providing training in weapons and explosives; and planning to bomb Christian churches in Jakarta in 2000.

In an odd twist, Patek, who was a fugitive from justice for ten years. was caught and arrested in January 2011 in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the same city where al-Qaeda chieftain Osama bin Laden was found and killed by U.S. commandoes in May of that year.

Patek was finally extradited to Indonesia in August 2011.

As a member of a splinter group of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant organization -- believed to have perpetrated a number of terrorist attacks across Indonesia – Patek received military training in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the early 1990s and came under the influence of bin Laden.

However, Patek claims he never even met bin Laden although they were living in the same Pakistani town.

[Patek] went to Pakistan as part of his plans to migrate to Afghanistan. He never had plans to meet Osama bin Laden, Hatjani said, according to Agence France Presse.