Indonesia terror laws to change: Report

The emergence of new terrorist threats, spreading extremist ideology and widespread recruiting by militant groups in prisons has prompted a major rethink of Indonesia’s counter-terrorism strategy and its famed programme of reaching out to convicted jihadists and rehabilitating them.

 

 

Since the Bali bombings of 2002 that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, Indonesiahas arrested more than 500 alleged terrorists and its police are hailed as perhaps the finest exponents of anti-terrorism in the world.

 

 

But according to the commander of Indonesian police’s elite Detachment 88 counter-terrorism unit, Brigadier-General Tito Karnavian, new recruits are springing up to replace those arrested as terrorist cells constantly evolve.

 

 

“Recruitment is still going on. We cannot stop it. The ideology is still spreading,” he said. “As long as they are doing the things not violating the law, like regrouping or discussing with one another, we cannot stop it. This is our weakness.”

 

 

In coming months, Indonesia will reveal a new set of counter-terrorism laws making the advocacy of militant Islam illegal and cracking down on “precursor” activities that take place before terrorism acts are executed.

 

 

Among Indonesia’s celebrated counter-terrorism strategies has been to treat convicted terrorists humanely, rewarding them for good behaviour while providing financial benefits to their families in an attempt to get them to change their ways and inform on their co-conspirators.

 

 

In one famous case, a senior Indonesian counterterrorism officer took Bali bomber Ali Imron to a Starbucks coffee shop, where the two were photographed sharing a joke.

 

 

The strategy has had mixed success.

 

 

On the positive side, Ali Imron, who remains in prison, is an informant who has provided valuable information to prosecutors and police. He has also counselled other prisoners against violence.

 

 

But recent police operations connected with the Jakarta hotel bombings of 2009 and the Aceh-based terrorist cell uncovered this year have revealed that 14 of those arrested or killed had previously been detained or imprisoned.

 

 

Abdullah Sunata, a ringleader of the Aceh-based cell that was allegedly plotting to assassinate Indonesia’s president amid a Mumbai-style attack on Indonesia’s independence day, was released from prison early for good behaviour despite his key role in the Australian embassy bombing in 2004. He remains at large.

 

 

Speaking to foreign reporters in Jakarta on Thursday, General Karnavian said it was ironic that thanks to the prison system, clandestine networks “can now convene and sit and discuss cleanly and safely. They are secured by the government.”

 

 

He said that much of the recruiting for the Aceh-based cell was done through prison visits. – (The Age, Australia)