INDONESIA. CONVICTED MILITANT TO APPEAL DEATH SENTENCE

Assep Djaja, a militant who was sentenced to death over attacks on Indonesian islands plagued by religious violence, said he would appeal the verdict, and insisted he was taking part in jihad not terrorism.
Assep had been found guilty of violating anti-terrorism laws on February 13 and ordered to face the firing squad for leading attacks on a police post and a Christian village in the Maluku islands in 2005 in which eight people were killed.
"I will appeal this to the higher court because...I am not a terrorist, that's only an American term, I was performing jihad to defend Muslim victims of violence in Ambon," Djaja told The Associated Press via his lawyer's cell phone.