JAKARTA, Indonesia - State prosecutors asked for a seven-year jail term Thursday for an Indonesian militant accused of raising money to finance last year's deadly twin suicide hotel bombings in the capital.
At a sentencing hearing before the South Jakarta District Court, prosecutors alleged Mohammad Jibriell Abdul Rahman violated the Anti-Terror Law by facilitating acts of terrorism.
Rahman, 25, was arrested about a month after the July 17, 2009, bombings at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels that killed seven people and injured more than 50.
He had flown to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, about a year before the attacks to arrange terrorism financing, prosecutors said. They did not specify how much money was raised for the bombings.
Chief prosecutor Firman Syah said Rahman also hid the late Noordin Top, a most-wanted terrorist mastermind, and Syaefudin Zuhri, another suspect in the bombings.
Both Noordin, who was blamed for a string of deadly bombings in the country, and Zuhri -- who accompanied Rahman to Mecca -- were later killed in separate police raids.
Rahman has denied any wrongdoing, saying the case against him was fabricated.
The defence will now have a chance to respond to the prosecution's case.
Indonesia has battled Islamist militants with links to al Qaeda since 2002, when extremists bombed a nightclub district on Bali island killing 202 people, most of them foreigners. Since then, a security crackdown has seen hundreds of militants killed or captured and convicted.
