Wife of Bali bombing suspect sentenced to jail

January 04, 2012

An Indonesian court on Wednesday sentenced the wife of the top suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings to 27 months in jail for immigration violations.

The East Jakarta District Court found Ruqayyah binti Husein Luceno, a 32-year-old Philippine national, guilty of using falsified personal data to get an Indonesian passport.

Luceno and her husband, Umar Patek, were arrested in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad on Jan. 25, ending a decade-long manhunt for one of Southeast Asia’s most wanted terrorist suspects. Patek is accused of making the explosives used in the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people. He is awaiting trial.

“The defendant has been proven guilty of violating the law … by giving wrong information to the immigration office,’’ said presiding judge Suharjono, who uses a single name.

Luceno and her husband traveled in August 2010 to Pakistan, where they were captured five months later in the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed.

Luceno and her lawyers have not yet decided whether to appeal the sentence, which was lighter than the prosecutor’s demand of four years.