Second suspected Marriott bomber goes on trial

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The second suspect in last year's bombing of the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta went on trial Monday on charges of transporting explosives used in the attack that killed 12 people.

Muhammad Rais, who is standing trial at the South Jakarta District Court, is accused of violating the country's tough anti-terror law and the criminal code.

In a 52-page indictment, prosecutors said Rais shipped 44 pounds of potassium chlorate to a house in Sumatra where the materials were mixed into six boxes of explosives.

Rais then helped ferry the explosives across Sumatra in February 2003 and to Jakarta in June, the indictment claims.

Prosecutors also said Rais conveyed a message from Osama bin Laden in 2001 to militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, inviting the alleged founder of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant group to move to Afghanistan.

Bashir was sentenced last year to four years in prison for treason and using forged papers to illegally enter Indonesia in 1999. In December, an appeals court reduced his sentence to three years.

Rais is the second of more than a dozen suspects arrested in the case to go on trial over the attack that also injured about 150 people. The first defendant to face justice was Sardono Siliwangi, whose trial opened in November.

Prosecutors have demanded a 15-year prison term for Siliwangi.

Under Indonesia's anti-terror laws, Rais faces the maximum punishment of death if found guilty.

The Marriott bombing and the October 2002 Bali attacks that killed 202 people were blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked militant group that allegedly wants to set up an Islamic state across Southeast Asia.