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team of lawyers, led by Ahmad Mihdan, has demanded the release of Abu Bakar Ba'€™asyir from prison, arguing that the court had wrongly convicted the cleric for his involvement in the training of terrorists in Aceh.

Speaking in his defense before the judicial review at Cilacap District Court, Central Java, on Tuesday, Mihdan said that witnesses in the trial had been examined through long-distance teleconferencing, arguing that this method was not legitimate according to the law.

'€œWe ask the panel of judges to release Abu Bakar Ba'€™asyir because the charge against him was legally flawed. There were several things in the previous trial that were not fulfilled,'€ he told the court.

He also denied that the funds collected from Ba'€™asyir by several people including Rizieq Shihab, leader of the Islamic Defender Front (FPI) had been for funding terrorism. He said it was an infaq (charity) fund for the interests of the Muslim community, including those in Palestine.

The South Jakarta District Court convicted Ba'€™asyir for planning or moving others by providing funds to join a military-style training activity in the Jantho mountain range in Aceh Besar and sentenced him to 15 years in prison for the conviction.

The Jakarta High Court later decreased the sentence to nine years, but the Supreme Court restored the sentence to the original 15-year term in October 2011.

Ba'€™asyir was then transferred to the Nusakambangan high-security prison in Cilacap where he continues to serve out his prison term together with other terrorist inmates. The judicial review was filed as his lawyers claim to have obtained new evidence in the case.

Ba'€™asyir was once tried and acquitted of being the leader of regional terrorist network Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) and for his alleged involvement in a string of terrorist attacks in Indonesia from 1999 to 2003, including the Bali bombings on Oct. 12, 2002. He is reported to have founded Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid from his cell, calling on his followers to support the Islamic State (IS) movement in Iraq and Syria.

Presenting his defense before the court, Ba'€™asyir, dressed in a white robe, said that what he did was to implement the Koran'€™s orders.

'€œThat'€™s why we cannot accept that what we did is considered terrorism. We are struggling for the sake of Islam,'€ said Ba'€™asyir, who was promptly greeted with cries of '€œTakbir!'€ (Praise for God) by his supporters.

Cilacap Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ulung Sampurna Jaya said that his office had deployed 1,000 personnel to tightly guard the judicial review.

In Ngruki, Sukoharjo, Central Java, Ba'€™asyir'€™s judicial review on Tuesday did not seem to disturb teaching and learning activities at the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school that the cleric founded.

'€œAll teaching and learning activities are running as normal. Nothing is special,'€ the school'€™s spokesman Hamim Sofyan said, adding that they had handed the case over to the team of lawyers.