The Jakarta Post, January 20, 2006
Police arrest two militants
Suherdjoko, The Jakarta Post, Semarang
Antiterror police have arrested two more men alleged to have links with fugitive
Malaysian terrorist Noordin M. Top, who has been accused of masterminding a series
of deadly bombings in Indonesia.
Joko Wibowo, 25, alias Abu Sayap, was arrested in the Central Java town of
Karanganyar on Wednesday, while Ibnu Pramono, 30, in Semarang on Tuesday
evening, police and relatives said on Thursday.
Joko was arrested by the elite antiterror police as he was believed to be a close friend
of Noordin, a key leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiyah hard-line network
blamed for several terrorist attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali nightclub
bombings that killed 202 people, mainly foreign tourists.
At the time of the arrest police also seized a revolver and 30 rounds of various kinds of
ammunition, including M-16 bullets belonging to the suspect.
Meanwhile, Ibnu was arrested by antiterror police at his home in Central Java's
Semarang on Tuesday evening, said Ibnu's brother-in-law Sugeng Romadhon on
Thursday.
"I don't know why Ibnu was arrested as he did not exhibit any strange behavior or had
not joined any organizations. He worked as a mathematics teacher at nearby
Pedurungan Kidul I elementary school," Sugeng said.
The arrest warrant stated that Ibnu had regularly lent his motorcycle to unidentified
clerics, Sugeng said.
Both Joko and Ibnu were believed to be close to Subur Sugiarto alias Abu Mujahid,
35, who was nabbed by police, also in Central Java, on Tuesday afternoon while he
was taking a bus to Jakarta.
Subur, who is a teacher of Islam, was believed to have encouraged the three suicide
bombers who blew up restaurants in Bali in October last year, in which 20 people
were killed.
Police raided Subur's house in Kendal near Semarang in November and found
ammunition in the form of 40 M-16 bullets, 40 pistol bullets, books on Islam, VCD
recordings, bomb-making manuals as well as documents that led to his name being
added to a list of terror suspects.
The arrests of both Joko and Ibnu as well as Subur brings the number of captured
hard-liners believed to have helped Noordin evade capture to eight over the last few
days.
The other five were Ardi Wibowo, Joko (not Joko Wibowo), Wahyu, Puji Srimulyono
(all of them in Semarang) and Aditya in Klaten, Central Java.
The recent arrests have been confirmed by Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Dody
Sumantyawan, who said that the arrests were part of police efforts to develop their
investigation into terrorist networks in Central Java.
"We have complete data, including the ones linked to a murder case in 2001 in
Surakarta," he said.
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