Ambon Police arrest seven suspects over Acehnese murders

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.