Terror suspect Umar Patek admitted on Monday to building the bombs used in the 2002 Bali bombings but denied that he was one of the masterminds behind the suicide attacks.

Addressing the West Jakarta District Court, Patek said that he was only “assembling the bombs.”

Prosecutors have accused Patek of violating the 2003 anti-terror law, but his lawyer, Ashludin Hatjani, said the law could not be applied retroactively.

“That is clearly illegal, meaning the prosecutors applied the retroactive principle in this case and the Constitutional Court has clearly said this could not be done,” Ashludin said.

The defense lawyer also rejected the prosecutor’s accusation that his client violated Article 340 of the Criminal Code on premeditated murder.

“The defendant has only constructed [bombs], not planned them,” Ashludin said.

The article, Ashludin said, concerned planning an act of terrorism, “but in the indictment of the prosecutor, there was no involvement in the planning or implementation of the action. He was only summoned by Iman Samudra to come to Bali and take part in constructing the bombs.” Samudra was one of the three key masterminds of the Bali bombing.

After the trial, Ashludin quoted his client as denying that he was in Pakistan in 2011 to meet with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Patek was arrested in Pakistan in January while Bin Laden was slain in a raid there a few months later.

The lawyer said his client had denied taking part in testing three M-16 rifles used for a paramilitary training program in the forest of Aceh that had been raided by the police in February 2010, as prosecutors have alleged.

“The defendant never took part in testing those weapons. He was there at the site, but he was only there to attend a wedding,” Ashludin said.

He also said that Patek insisted he never took part in the paramilitary training there.

Prosecutors at the West Jakarta District Court have accused Patek of multiple counts of terrorism, murder and document fraud for his role in building the car bomb that killed 202 people, most of them foreigners, at a nightclub in Bali’s Kuta area in October 2002.

He was also indicted for his role in a series of coordinated bomb attacks on churches across Indonesia during Christmas Eve in 2000 that killed 18 people, as well as for concealing information about a militant training camp that was uncovered in the Aceh foothills in early 2010.

Patek is the last of the Bali bombers to stand trial. Samudra and brothers Amrozi and Ali Ghufron were convicted and executed. Ali Imron is serving a life sentence.