Jakarta, Aug 12: Indonesian prosecutors were due later today to recommend a sentence for alleged terror group chief Abu Bakar Bashir, as the Muslim cleric accused US intelligence of carrying out deadly bombings in Bali and Jakarta. Bashir, a Muslim cleric who allegedly leads the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), faces 20 years if convicted of trying to topple the government through terrorism and to establish an Islamic state.

In a radio interview before the hearing, he said his trial has produced no proof of his guilt.


"The issue now is the extremely high likelihood that foreigners have intervened in it," Bashir told Elshinta Radio.
The 64-year-old cleric alleged that the US Central Intelligence Agency was behind last week's car bombing of the American-run Jw Marriott Hotel, which killed 11 people.

"I am very certain that the CIA was behind the Bali bomb and this one, the hotel last week. I'm certain of it," Bashir said.

JI is widely believed to have staged the Bali bombings which killed 202 people last October as well as the Marriott attack and a string of other bloody bombings.

Bashir's indictment accuses him of authorising Christmas eve attacks on Indonesian churches and priests that killed 19 people in 2000. He is also accused of plotting to assassinate Megawati Sukarnoputri before she became president.

Judges have not reached a verdict in Bashir's case and do not have to follow the prosecutors' sentence recommendation if they find him guilty.
Bureau Report