The Jakarta Post, November 29, 2005
Arrest of terrorist suspect sparks rampage in Maluku
M. Azis Tunny, The Jakarta Post, Ambon
Enraged by the arrest of terror suspect Syarif Tarabubun, hundreds of people attacked
and burned down on Monday a Muslim boarding school believed to have been
harboring terrorists.
The residents of the Muslim subdistrict of Haya, Central ! Maluku, went on a rampage
after they learned that the school principal, Batar, had allegedly harbored Syarif and
other terrorists who had been involved in terror activities in the formerly riot torn city of
Ambon.
Central Maluku Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ngurah Gunawan said that no fatalities
had been reported in the incident.
The police officer said Batar was not in the school at the time of the incident as he
had already left the area last year after he became the target of a police investigation
for his alleged key role in an attack in Wamkana subdistrict, Buru regency in May last
year, leaving three civilians dead.
Of five suspects in the case, only Batar and another person, Nurdin, are still at large
while three other suspects have been arrested. These three have admitted to police
investigators that they were involved in series of attacks in Maluku, particularly Ambon
city. "Batar has been our priority. We received a tip-off that he already recruited other
persons to mount terror attacks," said Ngurah Gunawan.
In a separate development, police investigators in Ambon are still questioning Syarif
Tarabubun, who is also a police officer, for his role in an armed attack on a cafe in
Ambon that killed two people. Syarif and 16 other people were arrested on Friday last
week for their alleged roles in attacks in Ambon city over the past year.
Syarif was also named a suspect in February two years ago for allegedly
masterminding the killing of civilians Tengku Fauzi Hasbi, Edy Saputra and Achmad
Saridu.
The three were abducted from a hotel in the Waihaong area, Ambon city, and were
then murdered. Syarif and the three dead people were believed to have all been
members of a radical group affiliated to regional terror network Jamaah Islamiyah, but
an internal rift led Syarif to commit the murders. Syarif was arrested in May 2003, but
was rel! eased after a court found him not guilty.
The preliminary investigation into Syarif and the other 16 persons arrested recently in
Haya subdistrict, Central Maluku, has found that they knew leading terrorists Azahari,
Noordin M. Top and Imam Samudera. Azahari was killed in a raid in Malang, East
Java, recently while Noordin is still at large. Imam Samudera was convicted for the
first Bali bombings and he is now on death row.
During questioning, Syarif and the other gang members admitted that the three
terrorists had trained them in Haya in 2000 when sectarian conflict was tearing
Maluku apart.
Ambon and other islands in Maluku were the scene of Muslim-Christian violence
between 1999 and 2002 that left thousands of people dead. The conflict also drove
hundreds of thousands of people from Maluku province. A government-sponsored
peace pact in 2002 has restored a semblance of normality in the area but sporadic
bombings an! d attacks still persist.
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