Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir went on trial in Indonesia on charges of leading the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist group.

Scores of supporters of the 66-year-old Bashir were at the courthouse as the bespectacled, gray-haired preacher was brought by police officers wielding M-16 rifles.

Prosecutors have charged Bashir in connection with a bomb attack at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta last year, which killed 12 people, and blasts at two Bali nightclubs in October 2002 that

killed 202, most of them foreign tourists.