Maluku police want convicted separatists detained
Aziz Tunny, The Jakarta Post, Ambon, Maluku
Police in the war-torn province of Maluku have called for the arrest of two separatist leaders, who remain free despite having been sentenced to three years in jail last week, in order to maintain peace in their homeland.
Maluku Police chief Brig. Gen. Bambang Sutrisno said he feared that Alex Manuputty, 55, and Semmy Waeleruny, 45, leaders of the separatist Maluku Sovereignty Front (FKM), could stir renewed attacks here if they were not ordered to serve their jail terms immediately.
Last Tuesday, the North Jakarta District Court sentenced the two, both Christians, in absentia to three years in prison for plotting a rebellion on the Maluku Islands.
They were found guilty of carrying "an act of subversion aimed at dividing the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia".
The court did not issue an arrest warrant for the defendants, who returned home to the Maluku provincial capital of Ambon on Jan. 7, after their detention period expired on Dec. 27 and before the court could issue a verdict.
Two days later, a separate court in Jakarta acquitted Ja'far Umar Thalib, leader of the self-dissolved Laskar Jihad Islamic militant group, of all charges of provoking renewed violence in Maluku, of spreading hatred against the government and of defaming President Megawati Soekarnoputri.
Bambang said the police were awaiting instructions from legal authorities to detain Alex and Semmy and send them to prison to maintain security in Maluku, which has continued to improve since the signing of a truce in 2001.
"We have no authority to arrest Alex Manuputty and Semmy Waeleruny, since we have no arrest warrant from the court," he told journalists in Ambon on Friday.
Bambang said local security forces had been monitoring the activities of the convicted separatist leaders in Ambon.
Separately on Friday, head of the Maluku Prosecutor's Office A. Badrani Rasyid expressed similar disappointment over the absence of a court order to send Alex and Semmy directly to prison.
Prosecutors, who had sought five-year sentences for the two on trial since June for campaigning for independence in Maluku, could not arrest them without a warrant from the court, Badrani said.
The two convicted separatists remain free as both appealed the verdict to a higher court.
Alex and Semmy were arrested in Ambon on April 17 after encouraging their followers in the small and poorly supported FKM to raise separatist flags, which were banned by the central government.
The group wants Jakarta to allow a referendum on self- determination akin to the 1999 UN-monitored ballot held in East Timor.