Laskar Jihad chief arrested, facing provocation charges
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The National Police confirmed on Saturday the arrest of Laskar Jihad Ahlussunah wal Jamaah commander Ja'far Umar Thalib over an allegedly provocative speech he made last week.
National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Saleh Saaf said Ja'far was arrested at 3:55 p.m. at Juanda Airport in Surabaya, East Java, on his way to Jakarta from Ambon, the capital of Maluku.
"He (Ja'far) will be charged under Article 160 of the Criminal Code on agitation and Article 130 of the Code on slanderous remarks against the President and Vice President," Saleh told a media conference at which he was accompanied by National Police chief of general crimes Brig. Gen. Aryanto Sutadi.
Article 160 of the Criminal Code carries a maximum sentence of six years in jail, while Article 130 carries an a sentence of eight-years imprisonment.
Both police officers then replayed a tape recording of Ja'far's speech to the crowd on April 26, in which he condemned Maluku Governor Saleh Latuconsina and Maluku Provincial Police chief Brig. Gen. Soenarko Danu Ardianto, and expressed his intention to kill all of the relatives of former president Sukarno, including current President Megawati Soekarnoputri.
The tape also revealed that Ja'far called on the crowd to "use bombs and fire them at the enemy".
Earlier on Saturday, Ja'far dismissed the allegations that he had helped provoke the attack on the Christian village of Soya last week, which killed at least 14 people.
"My speech before the crowd on April 26 was actually intended to calm down the local people," Ja'far told reporters at Hasanuddin Airport in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi, before he departed for Surabaya.
He questioned the genuineness of the tape recording provided by the police.
"That's the police's version of the case (the Soya incident and Ja'far's April 26 speech)," he said.
Originally, Ja'far was to have been arrested earlier in the day during his 30-minute stopover at Hasanuddin Airport in the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar on Saturday at noon local time on his way back to Java from Ambon, the capital of Maluku. Due to technical considerations, however, he was allowed to proceed to Surabaya, where he was eventually arrested, South Sulawesi Police chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani told The Jakarta Post by phone.
Firman said that police investigators in Ambon and Jakarta had enough prima facie evidence to arrest Ja'far.
"Ja'far's arrest is based on the prevailing law as there is evidence that he has been provoking conflict in Maluku for quite some time. The police do not have to wait for an order from the President in this regard as we run the (criminal justice) system by the book," he said.
Similarly, National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Saturday that there had been no instruction issued to the police for the arrest of Ja'far, claiming that the police had enough grounds of their own to arrest the Laskar Jihad chief.
Tensions were on the rise in Ambon on Saturday evening after a resident, identified as Stanley Maitimu, was killed and at least two others injured in a bomb blast earlier in the afternoon, reports said.
The blast went off while rival mobs were hurling stones at each other in the city's Trikora and Pohon Pule districts, the report said.
It was the second deadly blast since the signing of the peace pact in February. The first blast, which rocked Ambon on April 3, killed at least four people and triggered the torching of the gubernatorial offices by a mob.