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Jihad Force leader takes police chief to court over arrest
Jakarta Post, 8 May 2001
JAKARTA (Agencies): The leader of a militant Muslim group, charged with provoking violence against Christians in the strife-torn Maluku islands, filed a counter charge on Tuesday against Indonesia' police chief over his arrest.
Ja'far Umar Thalib, who leads the Java island-based 'Jihad Force' (Laskar Jihad), declared in a pre-trial suit that his arrest on Friday was illegal and demanded that he be released.
One of Ja'far's lawyers, Eggy Sujana, lodged the suit at the South Jakarta district court.
The dossier stated that the suit was directed against General Surojo Bimantoro, as the head of the national police (Polri). In the dossier, Ja'far's lawyers said police had not followed procedures in arresting their client.
Ja'far was arrested in Surabaya and flown to Jakarta, where he has remained under detention at the National Police headquarters.
"The process of arrest by the defendant of the plaintiff has not followed the procedure as stipulated in the penal code," the dossier said as quoted by AFP.
It said that Ja'far had only been shown a photocopy of the arrest warrant, and added that since the arrest had been made unlawfully, the detention of the plaintiff should also be considered unlawful.
It called on the court to declare the arrest of Ja'far unlawful, demanded his immediate release and that police publish a letter of apology in at least four leading newspapers.
The lawyers also demanded that the police rehabilitate the good name of their client and pay him a compensation of five million rupiah (US$454).
The dossier was received by a court official and a date has yet to be set for the hearing.
Ja'far was charged with "public displays of contempt and hatred towards a particular religious group" and negligence causing the death of another person," police said after his arrest.
Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment.
Police have also charged him with allowing the stoning to death of one of his men in Ambon who had admitted guilt in an adultery case. No date was given for the stoning death.
Fighting between Christians and Muslims erupted in Ambon in January 1999 and spread rapidly to other islands in the Malukus, otherwise known as the Spice Islands.
The Laskar Jihad has sent thousands of Muslim youths with paramilitary training on what they claimed were humanitarian missions to the Malukus, where more than 4,000 people have died in the bloody communal conflict over the past two years.
Based on documented reports, foreign and local rights activists have said the Laskar Jihad had joined the fighting there, and had in some cases been backed by government troops.
More than half a million of Maluku's some three million inhabitants have fled their homes for refugee camps or to other islands in the wake of the bloodshed.(*)
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