Ba'asyir gets jail term over Bali
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 Abu Bakar Ba'asyir's trial for allegedly inciting a series of terrorist attacks in Indonesia nears its end
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JAKARTA, Indonesia -- An Indonesian court has sentenced cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir to 30 months in jail for involvement in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people.
However, it cleared him of all other terror-related charges, including those relating to the deadly Marriott Hotel bombing, which killed 12 people.
The sentence will take into account time Ba'asyir has already spent in prison, said CNN Correspondent Kathy Quiano. Ba'asyir has been held in jail since April 2004.
Lawyers for the cleric said they planned to appeal the decision, and supporters of the cleric denounced the verdict, Quiano reported.
"His supporters in the courtroom reacted violently and they were visibly disappointed," Quiano said.
Thursday's sentence falls well short of the eight-year term sought by prosecutors.
That, in turn, was far less than the maximum penalty of death that Ba'asyir, 66, could have faced.
The day began when thousands of police officers formed a cordon as a smiling and seemingly calm Ba'asyir made his way into the courtroom.
The cleric then stood and addressed onlookers in the court for several minutes before turning around and sitting to face the five judges ruling on the four-month long trial.
The process of reading the verdicts stretched out over several hours.
Indonesian prosecutors and Western governments accuse Ba'asyir of heading the al Qaeda-linked group that was blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings and other terrorist attacks.
The cleric says he is innocent and denounces the allegations as a plot by Washington to silence his campaign for Islamic law.
Most analysts had predicted Ba'asyir would either walk free or receive a prison term far short of the maximum allowed -- partly due to the weak case put forward by prosecutors.
A verdict of not guilty would have likely angered the United States and other foreign governments, which were eager for a legal victory against terrorism networks in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
"If he gets off, it will be a huge moral victory ... not just for him, but for all the other groups pushing a hard-line agenda, " said Ken Conboy, a security analyst and author. "The ripple effect will be tremendous."
Indonesia has arrested scores of al Qaeda-linked militants in recent years, but some critics still see the nation as soft on terrorists.
Reently elected President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a U.S.-educated former military general, has pledged to crack down on Islamic militants.
Ba'asyir's arrest in April 2004 sparked minor clashes between his followers and police, and there were fears a guilty verdict could lead to fresh violence, so officials said hundreds of police were to be stationed at the courtroom for the verdict.
Australia and the United States consider Ba'asyir to be the spiritual head of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group, which is blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings, the 2003 bombing of the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta, and last year's blast at the Australian Embassy.
Intelligence officials say the group has cells across Southeast Asia.
During the trial, only one witness testified that Ba'asyir was the leader of Jemaah Islamiyah.
More than a dozen others said they did not know anything about Ba'asyir's alleged terrorism links or portrayed him as a simple Islamic teacher.
The witness, Nasir Abbas, said he was a former operative with Jemaah Islamiyah and that Ba'asyir claimed to have met al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Abbas also said the cleric headed Jemaah Islamiyah and swore him in as a member in 2000.
Kusnanto Anggoro, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, expected the judges to find Ba'asyir guilty and sentence him to about five years in jail.
"Indonesia would like to show to the world that it is against terrorism," he said. "A guilty verdict would be sufficient to do that."
Ba'asyir was acquitted in a separate trial last year of heading Jemaah Islamiyah.
He served an 18-month prison term for minor immigration violations, and was arrested on his release from jail. He has been behind bars since shortly after the October 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Before that attack, Ba'asyir was chiefly known for his campaign to install an Islamic-based government in Indonesia and his criticism of U.S. policy towards Muslim countries.
He has little active support in Indonesia, where hard-line religious interpretations are unpopular. But some mainstream clerics and government officials sympathize with him, saying he is a victim of foreign meddling.
"My worry is that the court is under pressure from the government and will find him guilty because of this," said Ba'asyir's chief lawyer, Mohammad Assegaf.
"From what we have seen in the trial, there is no legal basis to convict him as a terrorist."
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
