KUALA LUMPUR – The two Malaysians who pleaded guilty to the 2002 Bali bombings have been sentenced to 23 years of imprisonment but will serve only five more years of confinement in Guantanamo Bay.
Mohammed Farik Amin and Mohammed Nazir Lep were sentenced to 23 years by a military jury at the United States prison, the media reported.
However, a secret deal that was reached between the Pentagon and the Malaysians’ lawyers settled on “at most six more years”, in exchange for testimony against Indonesian man Hambali, the mastermind of the bombings, reported The New York Times.
Separately, the trial judge also shaved off 311 days from Farik’s sentence and 379 days from Nazir’s.
Both men, who have been held at Guantanamo since 2003, could be freed by 2029 and repatriated to Malaysia.
Last week, Farik, 48, and Nazir, 47, pleaded guilty to the bombings that killed 202 people on the Indonesian tourist island.
They have been held by the US since 2003, were moved to Guantanamo in 2006, and only faced trial in August 2021.
During trial, the prosecution told the military court that both men had wanted to obey the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to participate in violent jihad and travelled to Afghanistan in 2000.
They met Hambali, whose real name is Encep Nurjaman, then leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah movement, an ally of al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia.
The defence, meanwhile, told the military court of Farik’s torture at Guantanamo, which included waterboarding and being held naked while shackled.
Both men were also kept in solitary confinement.
The trial was decided by a jury of five US military officers who deliberated for about two hours yesterday.
The day before, Farik and Nazir apologised for their actions towards the victims.
Farik apologised to his family and all Muslims, saying, “This is not what I was taught as a child.”
He also said he had changed over the years of detention and that he was “not an angry young man anymore”.
“I am a reformed man. My faith has evolved,” he was quoted as saying. – January 27, 2024