Two Get Life Terms for Stock Market Blast in Indonesia

A court sentenced an army corporal and a former soldier to life in prison Wednesday for a blast at the Indonesian stock exchange in September that killed 15 people.

Prosecutors had demanded death for ex-Sgt. Irwan Ilyas and Cpl. Ibrahim Hasan.

“Both were soldiers who knew what such an explosion can do . . . so they took lives on purpose,” Judge Purwono told the court. Both had pleaded not guilty to possessing and using explosives, causing death and damage.

“Maybe this is the best sentence I can get,” Ilyas, who had escaped from authorities but was recaptured, told reporters afterward. However, his lawyer told the court he would appeal.

Hasan, who escaped and remains at large, also was sentenced in absentia on Monday to eight years in prison over a grenade attack on the Malaysian Embassy last year.

On Monday the court also sentenced two men to 20 years for involvement in the stock exchange bombing, one of a series of attacks that hit the capital. One of those men also is on the run.

All of the defendants have denied wrongdoing and say they were framed.

The motive for the exchange bombing, the bloodiest bomb attack in the capital in years, remains unclear.

Prosecutors have said only that the men wanted to destabilize the already troubled country.

Police this month accused disgraced former President Suharto’s fugitive youngest son, Hutomo Mandala Putra, better known as Tommy, of being behind some of the bombings.

They did not say which ones he was linked to, but former President Abdurrahman Wahid has publicly blamed Tommy for the stock exchange blast.

Tommy has been in hiding since November, when a court sentenced him to 18 months in jail for graft.

Newly installed President Megawati Sukarnoputri has vowed to stamp out the violence that has stoked instability in Indonesia and scared off foreign investors since the Asian financial crisis unleashed a wave of social and political unrest in 1997.