Another Ngruki alumni in hot seat

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A Muslim cleric has revealed that one of two Indonesians arrested in the Philippines and charged with terrorism was a former student at Al Mukmin Ngruki Islamic Boarding School in Surakarta.

The person in question, Mohammed Yusop Karim Faiz, had studied there for four years, although he did not finish high school, said Sholeh Ibrahim, the senior cleric at the boarding school, which was founded by terror suspect Abu Bakar Ba'asyir.

Faiz was arrested along with another Indonesian, Mohammad Nasir Hamid, in the southern city of Zamboanga in December for alleged possession of explosives and an apparent plan to attack public facilities in the neighboring country.

However, the arrest of the two Indonesians, who have also been accused of being members of the regional terror group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), was only made public last week.

Sholeh said that Faiz started his studies at Al Mukmin Ngruki's junior high school in 1990 and completed junior high in 1994. He continued to study in the high school but dropped out after the first year in 1995. "I don't know where he went to study after he left this school," Sholeh said, quoted by Antara news agency as saying.

From the information given by his family and local police, Faiz left his hometown in Klaten, Central Java in 2001 and later enrolled at the Ibnu Sa'ud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. During his studies there, he went home to visit his family twice in 2002 and again in January 2003. "That was his last contact with the family. After that, the family lost track of his whereabouts and all of the sudden they were told that Faiz was arrested in the Philippines," a police officer in Klaten said.

Faiz, whose birth name was Muhammad Saifudin, is the youngest son of Basri and Sa'adah.

According to Thohir Widjaja, the head of the general affairs office in Tempursari village, Faiz is also known to have a twin brother named Muhammad Nurrudin, but the brother's whereabouts is also unknown, while some people say that Nurrudin died as a "holy warrior" fighting Christians in Ambon. Oddly, Faiz's five other siblings have also lost contact with family and friends.

Although the Filipino authorities said that Faiz and Nasir Hamid were working together with the local terror group -- Abu Sayyaf -- to plan attacks in the Philippines, the Indonesian police so far claim they know nothing about any connection between the two suspects to Indonesian terror attacks in the last few years.

The Al Mukmin Ngruki Islamic Boarding School has been in the spotlight for the past few years after several of its students were arrested for or accused of terrorism. Several former Ngruki students, including Amrozi for example, were convicted for their respective roles in the Bali bombing in October 2002. Some of the former students received long jail sentence, and others are on death row. That attack claimed the lives of over 200 people.

Not only the students, but the founder of the school, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, has also been charged with have a role in terror activities. After being acquitted last year, Ba'asyir was rearrested and put back on trial for allegedly leading his JI followers to perpetrate the Bali bombings and a deadly bomb attack on the Jakarta's Marriott hotel.