Ambon Police arrest seven suspects over Acehnese murders

Muhammad Azis Tunny, The Jakarta Post, Ambon, Maluku

Police arrested on Wednesday seven men who are suspected of being behind the recent kidnapping and murder of three Acehnese men, but officers remained in the dark over the motive.

The suspects led police officers to the graves of the three Acehnese in the hills of Batumerah near the provincial capital of Ambon.

The body of Tengku Fauzi, alias Abu Jihad, was found in a shallow grave, about one meter deep. Police plan to exhume the other two bodies, Ahmad Saridu and Edi Putra, alias ustadz (Islamic religious teacher) Edi, on Thursday.

Police said they were kidnapped and murdered in February.

Police identified six of the suspects as Hermanto alias Yanto, Mansur Fataruba alias Tucek, Abdullah Prawira, Yudi Saptura, Ganes and Syarif Tarabubun. Hermanto allegedly led the group, while Syarif is a police officer in Ambon. His rank was not disclosed.

Police said that Abu Jihad, Ahmad and Edi came to Ambon to invest in a clove business. They were abducted from the Nisma Hotel in Ambon on February 23, 24 and 25 but murdered at the same time, police disclosed.

They said Mansur confessed to the killing, saying that he felt guilty after murdering ustadz Edi.

He said Hermanto ordered the murders for which he paid Mansur Rp 1 million (about US$117).

He said Hermanto took an ATM card belonging to Abu Jihad and used it to withdraw Rp 45 million from the victim's bank accounts.

Police were able to identify the suspects after they used Abu Jihad's ATM card. Security cameras were able to catch the suspects' faces on film as they withdrew the money.

However, police said they were looking for three more suspects.

Maluku Police chief Brig. Gen. Bambang Sutrisno said the three suspects might have escaped to the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar.

A motive for the killing has not been established yet, said the police chief.

A source at the police said they were execution-style murders, and that the killers and victims were members representing opposing camps within the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist group.

He said Abu Jihad was a senior JI member, who was killed by his rivals in the organization. However, he gave no details of an internal rift within the organization which could prompt the killings.

Ustadz Edi, the source said, was killed while he was praying. The victim asked his killers to let him pray, but before he could finish they hit him with an iron pole and a shovel with which they had dug his grave, he said.

JI is a shadowy terrorist organization with bases reportedly in Singapore and Malaysia. It allegedly aims to establish an Islamic state in the region.

Police believe that JI was behind last year's terrorist strike in Bali, which killed at least 202 people, mainly foreign tourists.

So far there have been no official reports of a JI presence in Maluku. The province is still recovering from three years of fighting between Muslims and Christians. Laskar Jihad was the only known militant Muslim organization operating in Maluku.

Makassar, where the three suspects have allegedly fled to, is known to have a terrorist group with links to JI.

There have also not been any reports of a JI presence in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh, where rebels have been fighting for independence since 1976.

Links between terrorism and the struggle for independence in Aceh surfaced with the bombing of the Jakarta Stock Exchange building in September 2000. Several recent bomb blasts in Jakarta and in Medan, North Sumatra, have also born the mark of Acehnese rebels. However, the rebels have denied these charges.