Bali attacks: US military justice charges 3 Guantanamo detainees

More than 18 years after the events, the American military justice has indicted three Guantanamo detainees suspected of belonging to the Islamist network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) for their alleged involvement in the attacks in Bali and Jakarta, the Pentagon announced Thursday.

Read also: Bali attacks: Islamist religious leader Abu Bakar Bashir released

Indonesian Encep Nurjaman, better known by his war name Hambali, and the two Malaysians Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep and Mohammed Farik Bin Amin, are accused of planning and of having been complicit in the bombing of a Bali nightclub, which killed 202 people in October 2002, and car bombings against the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta the following year, the US Department of Defense said in a statement.

They are charged with conspiracy, assassination, attempted assassination, terrorism, attacks against civilians, destruction of property and complicity by assistance.

No date has yet been set for their trial.

The Guantanamo military prison still houses some 40 detainees, 26 of whom are considered too dangerous to be released, but legal proceedings drag on due to the complexity of their cases.

One of the difficulties is that the prisoners went through secret CIA prisons, where some underwent

- a euphemism for torture - which were used to construct the case. charge.

However, American justice does not consider confessions obtained under torture as admissible evidence.

All three were separately arrested in Thailand in 2003. Islamist religious leader Abu Bakar Bashir, considered the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, was released from prison in early January, angering victims of the Bali bombings.

The group, linked to Al-Qaeda, was founded in the 1980s by Indonesian Islamist activists exiled in Malaysia, and has created cells in several countries in Southeast Asia.