M

ore than six months after his arrest in Pakistan, master bomb maker Umar Patek arrived under heavy security in Jakarta on Thursday where he will await trial.

Patek was, until his arrest, the target of an international manhunt for his involvement in a string of Christmas Eve attacks on churches in 2000, the first Bali bombing in 2002 and the SuperFerry 14 attack in Manila Bay, Philippines.

Patek and fellow suspected terrorist Dulmatin fled to Mindanao a year after allegedly helping mastermind the nightclub bombings in Bali. On April 2007, he reportedly evaded capture during a raid by Philippine troops at camps of a separatist group with alleged ties to al-Qaeda.

Patek had a US$1 million bounty on his head when authorities caught up with him on Jan. 25 in Abbottabad — the same town where Osama bin Laden was later killed in a secretive US commando attack four months later.

“Patek arrived at 7 a.m. this morning in Jakarta,” National Police chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said at the Presidential Palace prior to a Cabinet meeting.

He said Patek was being held at the Police Mobile Brigade detention center in Kelapa Dua, East Jakarta.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam said authorities would charge Patek under the Criminal Code instead of the antiterrorism law, since the latter could not be applied retroactively.

Anton added that under the Criminal Code, police could charge Patek with premeditated murder. He said Patek would also be charged with violating the emergency law on explosives.

The antiterrorism law was previously used in the earlier trials of those involved in the Bali bombing, which killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists, including 88 Australians.

A Constitutional Court decision on a judicial review on the law in June 2004 ruled that the retroactive use of the law violated the Constitution.

The decision, however, does not automatically overturn the convictions of dozens of militants responsible for the first Bali bombing.

Under the law, convicted Bali bombers Amrozi, Ali Gufron and Imam Samudra were sentenced to death and executed together on Nusakambangan Island on Nov. 9, 2008.

Indonesia’s antiterrorism chief, Ansyaad Mbai, told the Associated Press that because tough antiterrorism laws passed after the Bali blasts could not be applied retroactively, Patek would likely be charged with illegal possession of explosives.

Gadjah Mada University law expert Eddy Hiariej said he feared Patek could get off with a light sentence due the nature of the Criminal Code.

Eddy said prosecutors would likely charge Patek with premeditated crime. However, he said, articles on premeditated crime applied to crimes committed against an individual. Acts of terrorism, on the other hand, affect many people.

“The nature of terrorism is annihilation. It will be problematic to charge Patek under the Criminal Code,” he said.