MALAYSIA/ CONDANNATI PER TRADIMENTO 19 ESTREMISTI ISLAMICI

  Avevano organizzato una rivolta per rovesciare il governo Kuala Lumpur, 27 dic.  - Un tribunale malaysiano ha condannato oggi diciannove membri di una setta islamica che aveva organizzato una rivolta armata per rovesciare il governo del primo ministro Mahathir Mohamad per rimpiazzarlo con uno stato islamico.  I ribelli musulmani rischiano l'ergastolo o la condanna a morte per impiccagione.  La setta Al-Ma'unah aveva assaltato i depositi di armi dell'esercito per rubare armi e cominciare una piccola guerra. I ribelli presero due ostaggi prima di arrendersi.  Il capo della setta, Mohamed Amin Mohamed Razali, ex soldato e fanatico delle arti marziali, aveva convinto i suoi seguaci che sarebbero stati protetti da poteri mistici.

- December 27

Malaysian Muslim Cult Found Guilty of Rebellion

By Jalil Hamid

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's High Court found 19 members of a little-known Muslim sect guilty on Thursday of armed rebellion to set up an Islamic state and the men could now be sentenced to hang.

The leader of the shadowy Al-Ma'unah cult, Mohamed Amin Razali, and his followers were captured after a shootout in the jungle just weeks after the gang pulled off arms heists at two army camps in the middle of last year.

Leaders of the sect, which began under the guise of a martial arts group, said its mission was to fight on behalf of suppressed Muslims, and convinced followers they possessed mystical powers that would protect them in battle.

 ``I hearby find the accused guilty of waging war against the government to set up an Islamic state through violent means under the name of Islamic jihad (holy war),'' said High Court Judge Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin.

 After handing down the verdict the judge began hearing mitigation pleas by the defense for the accused men, who could face the death penalty or life imprisonment.

 ``Please don't send us to the gallows,'' tearful Ibrahim Idris, a 46-year-old former soldier, pleaded from the dock as he apologized to the Malaysian king and fellow Malaysians.

 Sentences are expected to be delivered Friday afternoon.

 Relatives wept and tried to reach the convicted men, most of them bearded and wearing white skull caps, as they were led handcuffed from the packed courtroom after the verdict was read.

 ROPED INTO JIHAD

 The judge said evidence identified Amin, 30, as the ringleader, and said the others blamed the former army private and self-styled religious teacher for roping them into his jihad.

 Others found guilty included a serving army major, a former police commando and a religious student who had studied at Cairo's famous al-Azhar University.

 For their training they were shown videos of Muslims waging a jihad in the strife-torn Indonesian province of Maluku.

 In July last year sect members posed as senior army officers and drove off with a huge cache of weapons and communications equipment from two military camps in northern Perak state.

 They holed up on a jungle hillock with the stolen arsenal and held off the security forces for days.

 A soldier, a policeman and a sect member were killed before 29 Al-Ma'unah followers were captured to end one of the most serious security breaches the country has seen.

 Ten members of the group were sentenced early last year to 10 years in jail after the prosecution amended the charges against them to a lesser one of preparing to wage war.

 ISOLATED INCIDENT

 The emergence of the previously unheard of Al-Ma'unah was viewed as an isolated episode in a country regarded as one of the most stable and peaceful in Southeast Asia.

 However, in a crackdown launched before the September 11 attacks on the United States, police rounded up a handful of suspected Muslim militants linked to a mainstream Islamic opposition party.

 They are being held under a law that allows detention without trial and are also accused of plotting a violent campaign to install a ``purer'' Islamic state in multi-cultural Malaysia.

 One of the detained men is a son of Nik Aziz Nik Mat, the spiritual leader of the opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS). 

But, Al-Ma'unah had no established links with mainstream parties, and was characterized as a deviant Muslim sect.

 During the trial the court heard how Amin had sought revenge for the killing of another cult leader nearly 17 years ago in a village where he had attended religious school at the age of 13.

 In 1985, in Memali, a village in the northern state of Kedah, four policemen and 14 Muslim villagers were killed when security forces opened fire on Ibrahim Mahmood, a cult leader otherwise known as ``Ibrahim Libya,'' and his followers.

  28 December

Death penalty for three Malaysians

The convicted men remained calm during sentencing

Malaysia's High Court has sentenced three members of a Muslim cult to death by hanging.

Sixteen other members of the group, convicted on Thursday of treason for plotting armed rebellion, have been given life sentences.

 Passing sentence, Judge Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin said the consequences for Malaysia would have been unimaginable if the members of the al-Ma'unah cult had succeeded in toppling the government and replacing it with an Islamic state.

 Mohamed Amin Mohamed Razali: Martial arts fanatic

 The three men facing execution are the cult leader Mohamed Amin Mohamed Razali and two followers, Zahit Muslim and Jamaludin Darus.

 Policemen ringed the dock as the sentence was read to the convicted men. All 19, each wearing a white skull cap, remained calm but many of their relatives broke down.

 Defence lawyer Karpal Singh expressed shock at the death sentences. "We expected life imprisonment. The circumstances did not warrant the death penalty," he said.

 Mr Karpal said an appeal would be lodged against both the sentences and the convictions.

 Jungle shoot-out

 Mohamed Amin Razali, a martial arts expert, and his followers believed mystical powers protected them from harm.

Al-Ma'unah members are taught they are protected from harm

 In July last year, they posed as army officers to steal more than 100 rifles and large quantities of ammunition from two bases.

 The group also took hostages, two of whom were killed, before the men were captured following a jungle shoot-out in northern Perak state.

 The defendants were charged with waging war against the king, the country's constitutional head of state.

 Six members were sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment last December, on the lesser charge of making preparations to wage war.

 Attorney General Mohtar Abdullah alleged that al Ma'unah members had also been involved in other violent incidents.

 These included an attempted attack on a power installation in Perak, and grenade attacks on a brewery in Kuala Lumpur and a Hindu temple at the Batu Caves - a popular tourist destination just outside the city.

 Two-thirds of Malaysia's 23 million people are Muslim, and such cases of religious extremism are rare in the country.

 Al-Ma'unah described itself as a self-defence army for suppressed Muslims.