Backup for antiterror war lamented

Tiarma Siboro and Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The absence of legal grounds to deal with transnational crime and a lack of coordination among government institutions are obstructing the country's efforts to curb terrorist-related activities, according to intelligence sources.

The sources also said that the military had often fed intelligence data to the police, but the latter failed to follow it up because "intelligence reports are not acceptable for the due process of the law".

To illustrate his point, he referred to the country's efforts to uncover here the network of the international terrorist group al-Qaeda.

"Legally, we can arrest suspected terrorists under the existing laws, considering that we do not have an antiterrorism law following the revocation of the Antisubversion Law in 1999," a source told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

The 1999 Antisubversion Law granted intelligence officers the unlimited right to take any action, which included arresting and questioning people based on an intelligence report.

Today, an arrest can be made by using an immigration law or forgery charges instead of the Antiterrorism Law, he said.

Suspected terrorist Omar al-Faruq, for example, was arrested and deported on charges of violating the Immigration Law, not of terrorist acts.

Meanwhile, another intelligence officer urged for the establishment of an antiterror body involving security officers to curb terrorist acts. He said the Army's Special Force's (Kopassus) antiterror detachment was trained to deal with problems caused by terror acts -- such as hijacking or hostage taking -- rather than taking preventive action.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. introduced an antiterrorism law which stipulates that intelligence data is acceptable for prosecuting suspects. The law declares a state of war and adopts a military law that does not acknowledge a suspect's rights, including the right to be silent, the source said.

"Based on this antiterrorism law, the U.S. has made several arrests on suspected terrorists, including the recent arrests of Omar al-Faruq, claiming to be a Kuwaiti citizen, and Muhammad Iqbal Saad Madni, an Egyptian. But it (U.S. law) cannot be applied here," he said.

"It is different now as the police can only arrest and investigate people through the proper procedures and strong evidence," he said.

He was referring to the police's failure recently to prosecute Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the chairman of the Solo-based Indonesian Mujahiddin Council (MMI), and Ja'far Umar Thalib of the Laskar Jihad. Both are alleged to have links with the international terrorist group al-Qaeda.

Under the New Order regime, the military could launch intelligence operations in all areas of society, including in politics. Many of the operations victimized civilians. Following the downfall of former president Soeharto, Indonesia was hit by a series of bomb attacks, but so far only a few cases have been brought to court.

"For intelligence output, we follow the so-called intelligence cycle, which starts with the collection of data or information as preliminary evidence, an analysis of the data and then a conclusion of whether or not the data is valid," the source said.

"Once it (the data) meets the requirements of an intelligence product, we report it to the related institutions, to our supervisor or the decisionmaker," the source said.

He added that during the analyses, intelligence officers conducted Positive Clandestine Intelligence, or PCA. The process is carried out through an underground operation, which sometimes requires the officer to interrogate people behind closed doors. The process is also called elicitation.

The source admitted that intelligence reports were sometimes fabricated for the sake of political interests, and "such practices are still going on until now".