JAKARTA, Indonesia - A former student of an alleged al Qaeda commander flew to Saudi Arabia to raise money for suicide attacks on two Jakarta hotels that he hoped would be the biggest terrorism act since Sept. 11, 2001, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Chief Prosecutor Firman Syah made the allegation in opening his case in the South Jakarta District Court against Muhammad Jibriel Abdul Rahman, a flamboyant 25-year-old who once called himself the "Prince of Jihad" on his radical Islamic Web site.
Police arrested Rahman more than a month after the July 17, 2009, attacks on the J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels that killed seven and injured more than 50. He faces a maximum 15 years in prison if convicted of helping facilitate a terrorist act by concealing information.
Rahman, who came to court wearing a black shirt and jeans and flanked by more than a dozen men wearing black jackets emblazoned with "mujahedeen," said he was innocent.
"I think this case is fabricated. I didn't do anything wrong," Rahman said shortly before his trial began.
Defence lawyer Achmad Michdan said the case was weak and he will apply to a panel of three judges to dismiss it when the trial resumes next week.
Syah alleged that Rahman studied at an Islamic boarding school in Malaysia in 1998 when he first met Malaysian-born Noordin Top, an alleged terrorist mastermind blamed for a string of deadly bombings before he was shot dead in a police raid in September last year. In 1998, Noordin was a teacher at Rahman's school.
The indictment says Rahman met Noordin about a year before the hotel bombings. After that meeting, it says Rahman sent an email to his brother, Ahmad Isrofil Mardhotillah, who was in the Saudi holy city of Mecca, saying, "I have met with N. we talked for a long time in a car ... Preacher N needs 100 million."
While not detailing a plot, Rahman allegedly wrote of a secret plan that was "the biggest since the WTC" -- a reference to the World Trade Center twin towers that were brought down by hijacked airliners.
Rahman and another suspect in the bombings, Syaefudin Zuhri, then flew to Mecca to arrange terrorism financing, the indictment alleges. Zuhri was later killed in a police raid. The indictment did not specify how much money they raised and whether any reached Noordin.
Michdan said the prosecution case on the terrorism charge was weak because the email is the only evidence. "Even the prosecutors say this email is difficult to understand," he told reporters outside court.
Police killed nine suspects and arrested more than a dozen in the hotel bombing investigation. Rahman was only the third of 11 charged so far to go to trial.
The trials of Noordin's alleged driver, Amir Abdillah, and an alleged accomplice, Aris Susanto, began Feb. 10.
Abdillah was charged with concealing information about the alleged hotels plot and plans to assassinate Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Police arrested the alleged conspirators before an attempt was made on the president's life.
Susanto was charged with harbouring terrorists, including Noordin.
Rahman was supported in court by his father, hard-line cleric Abu Jibril, who once taught at the same school as Noordin and was deported from Malaysia following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
"There is no reason for accusing him of helping terrorists," the father said.
"I once faced a similar case, so this is nothing new to us," he added, referring to his time in Malaysian custody before he was deported without charge.
