Jakarta court tries 'hotel bombing financier'

The hotels are in Jakarta's central business district

An Indonesian militant has gone on trial accused of helping to finance deadly attacks on luxury hotels in Jakarta last July.

Mohammed Jibril Abdurahman, 25, who went by the online moniker "Prince of Jihad", appeared in court as dozens of women in black chanted "God is Great".

He faces up to 15 years in jail if found guilty.

The bombings killed seven people and two suicide bombers and ended a four-year hiatus in attacks in Indonesia.

Mr Abdurahman is accused of flying to Saudi Arabia to raise money to finance the attacks. Prosecutors allege that the 25-year-old had ties to alleged regional terrorist mastermind Noordin Top.

Closely watched

But he denied the charges and accused the court of making it all up.

"I think this case is fabricated. I didn't do anything wrong," he told reporters outside court shortly before his trial began.

Prosecutors allege he was studying in an Islamic boarding school in Malaysia when he first met Mr Noordin, who became his teacher, in 1998.

I heard two sounds like 'boom, boom' coming from the Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton - then I saw people running out Eko Susanto, security guard In pictures: Jakarta hotel blasts Eyewitnesses: Jakarta attacks Attack waiting to happen?

After meeting him again about a year before the bombings, prosecutors say he sent an e-mail to his brother, Ahmad Isrofil Mardhotillah, who was in the Saudi holy city of Mecca, saying: "I have met with N., we talked long in car ... Preacher N needs 100 million..."

The BBC's Karishma Vaswani says it is not clear how much money was raised - if any - and whether any of it actually reached Indonesia.

She says the case is being watched closely by security analysts in Indonesia.

INDONESIA ATTACKS Dec 2000: - Church bombings kill 19 Oct 2002: - Bali attacks kill 202 Dec 2002: - Sulawesi McDonald's blast kills three Aug 2003 - Jakarta Marriott Hotel bomb kills 12 Sept 2004: - Bomb outside Australian embassy in Jakarta Sept 2005: Suicide attacks in Bali leave 23 dead, including bombers Indonesia braces for tourism blow Profile: Jemaah Islamiah

They think it will provide vital clues about what kind of network Mr Noordin may still have in Indonesia - and crucially, whether the funding for the attacks came from within the country or from overseas.

That information could help Indonesian security forces as they continue their fight against terrorism.

Another trial began last week of Amir Abdillah, 34, accused of being the driver for Mr Noordin, who was shot by police in a September raid on a central Java village.

Indonesia suffered a number of bomb attacks - mainly linked to the militant group Jemaah Islamiah - in the first years of the century.

The country of 240 million people has been praised in recent years for maintaining a pluralist democracy, while punishing Islamists behind a series of bombings.

Attacks on two nightclubs in Bali in October 2002 killed 202 people, most of them Australian.

The Marriott Hotel was the target of a bomb attack in August 2003 in which 12 people were killed.

Since then, a combination of new laws, anti-terror training, international co-operation and reintegration measures have kept Indonesia peaceful, analysts have said.