JAKARTA: He mixed the deadly cocktail of chemicals in the 700-kilogram Bali bomb, but Umar Patek's lawyers yesterday denied he was responsible for the deaths caused by its explosion.

At the resumption of his trial at West Jakarta Court, Mr Patek's defence team downplayed his role in the bombing, arguing that south-east Asia's most notorious bombmaker was merely following orders from above.

"The defendant was only responding to Imam Samudra's requests to mix potassium chlorate and sulphur together with Dr Azhari to assemble the bomb," Mr Patek's lawyer, Asluddin Hatjani, told the court.

Imam Samudra, together with Amrozi and Mukhlas, were executed for their role in the Bali bombing in late 2008, while Dr Husin Azhari was shot dead by Indonesian counterterrorism forces in Batu, East Java, in November 2005.

Mr Patek, a notorious Jemaah Islamiyah member, is the last of the bombers to face trial for his alleged role in the Bali bombing that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

In relation to the criminal charge of premeditated mass murder, Mr Patek's defence team argued that he neither planned nor directly executed the attack as he left the resort island days before the bomb was detonated.

"The defendant's role was only in preparation [of the bomb] and providing assistance," Mr Hatjani said. "The defendant does not qualify as someone who participated [in the mass murder] because his role did not cause the bomb explosion and subsequent deaths.''

Despite claims that he was not involved in organising the attack, Mr Patek admitted that he met with the other bombers in Central Java a week later to celebrate and evaluate the success of the bombings.

After nine years on the run with a million-dollar bounty on his head, Mr Patek was captured in the same Pakistani town where Osama bin Laden was killed by American special forces and extradited to Indonesia last year.

The trial, adjourned until next Monday, is expected to run for the next four months.