Convicted Istiqlal bomber still in police custody
JAKARTA (JP): Surya Setiawan, alias Wawan, the man sentenced to three years and two months in prison for planting the bomb which exploded at the Istiqlal Grand Mosque on April 19, has yet to be transferred by the police to a public penitentiary.
The 26-year-old man has instead been held in police custody at the Jakarta Police Headquarters in South Jakarta since the Central Jakarta District Court found him guilty on Oct. 18.
A senior police officer, close to the investigation of the case, confirmed this on Wednesday and said the decision not to send Wawan to a penitentiary like other criminals was due to his status as a "state prisoner".
"He's a state prisoner. It's fine if he is kept here in city police detention.
"He's safe here. We're not quite sure about his security if he has to be put somewhere else," the reliable officer, who asked for anonymity, told The Jakarta Post.
"You cannot forget that he's a political prisoner.
"And nobody from his family has come to meet him in the past seven months. Even if they did, we would discourage the meeting since his life could be in danger."
"If he's shot, or if the person who visits him tried to influence him in some way or other, he'd be finished.
"He's in a city police detention cell here for his own safety."
The officer, however, could not explain on what grounds the police are giving Wawan special treatment.
When asked to comment on this exceptional case, prominent lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis urged the Jakarta Police to immediately send Wawan to a public prison unless they wanted to get in trouble with existing laws.
"Even if the prisoner is a state prisoner, I don't think putting him in police detention is correct. There's no such thing," Todung told the Post over the phone.
No reporters have been allowed to meet the prisoner, even after his arrest following the blast on the ground floor of the grand mosque.
Jakarta Police detectives usually invite the press to interview recently arrested suspected criminals.
According to a former inmate at the detention center, Wawan's cell is one of the most tightly secured.
Mastermind
A few days after the bombing, a former state official was alleged by unconfirmed reports to have been the mastermind behind the bombing, in an effort to ignite religious tension ahead of the general election campaign in May.
Police reportedly kept the details of the case under wraps because of their sensitive nature and their relation to maneuverings among the political elite.
All seven suspects in the blast were reportedly staying at a rented house in Ciledug, but were arrested in different places starting on May 7.
No one was injured during the bombing at the grand mosque, though the windows and doors of several offices on the ground floor were damaged.
Jakarta Police chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djajoesman said earlier in June that "Wawan, the oldest among them, was the one who received the orders and directed his friends. He also was the one who planted the bomb at the mosque."
Wawan was reportedly "abducted" by a group of unidentified people in early April when he was at Gambir Train Station in Central Jakarta.
He told police later he was terrorized for several days and briefed on the plot of the bombing, before being sent back to the railway station, Noegroho said.
"Wawan was a street musician before he was picked up by a charity foundation in the Kebon Sirih area," Noegroho said, referring to a district in Central Jakarta.
He declined to disclose the name of the social welfare foundation, saying that police did not find any indications of its involvement in the blast. The only connection was that all the suspects were trained and educated at the foundation, Noegroho said.
All of those arrested have claimed not to know who gave them orders or the motives behind them. They also claimed that they didn't know that the wooden box carried in a black bag, which they placed in the mosque, contained a bomb.
"The orders were not given face to face but through notes, and the seven obeyed the orders because they were intimidated and threatened," Noegroho said.
Police said earlier that the powerful blast was from a potent mixture of trinitrotoluene (TNT) and potassium chlorate (KCLO3). It caused an estimated Rp 500 million damage to at least 21 Islamic organizations' offices. (ylt)