It was reported by the Associated Press that a military panel in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba recommended 23 years in prison for two Malaysian men for their connection with the 2002 bombings in Bali. According to a spokesman for the military.
The recommendation is followed by guilty pleas from earlier this month under plea bargains for the detainees Mohammed Farik Bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep. This marks equally rare convictions in the past two decades of proceedings by the United States Military Commission in Guantanamo.
The Sentencing
Guantanamo's military spokesperson Ronald Flesving confirmed the sentencing recommendations. The extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah carried out the attack that killed 202 Indonesians, foreign tourists, and others in two nearly simultaneous bombings on the resort island of Bali. The two defendants have denied any role or previous knowledge of the attacks but the plea bargains have admitted to conspiring over time with the militant organization responsible. However, the sentencing itself still requires the approval of the senior military authority over Guantanamo. Amin and Lep are only two of the 780 detainees who were brought into military detention at Guantanamo under George W. Bush's "War On Terror"
However, despite the large number of detainees, there have only been eight convictions according to the advocacy group, Reprieve. This is most likely due to prosecutions being bombarded with logistical troubles ranging from the overturning of judges as well as legal questions circling the integration process of the detainees by the C.I.A. According to the report, only 30 of the detainees remain in Guantanamo with up to half being cleared and are eligible for transfer out if a stable country agrees to take them. As a part of the plea deals Amin and Lep have agreed to provide testimony against fellow detainee Hambali. Relatives of some of the victims of the attack testified on Wednesday. One came from Matthew Arnold, from Birmingham, England. Arnold who lost his brother as a result of the attack stated, "The reach of this atrocity knew no bounds, and has affected very many people."
