Teacher apprehended for alleged link with Azahari
Indra Harsaputra, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya
Police have disclosed that activist Adi Suryana has been arrested and is undergoing questioning for his alleged link with wanted terrorist suspect Azahari.
East Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani said on Friday that Adi was arrested by the antiterrorist team of the National Police headquarters on Friday at dawn.
Police suspect Malaysian nationals Azahari and Nurdin M. Top were the bomb makers in the Oct. 12, 2002 Bali bombing and the Aug. 5 J.W. Marriott Hotel bombing last year in Jakarta.
The police are conducting a nation-wide hunt to arrest the two terrorist suspects.
Adi was arrested when he was going to a mosque near his house in Asemrowo, Surabaya, for the dawn prayer with his 10-year-old son Humam Almahi.
Firman said that the National Police team, led by Sr. Comr. Bekto Suprapto, had been conducting surveillance in the province for two weeks before he finally arrested Adi.
"We are not clear about the role of Adi in relation to the two terror suspects," the police chief said.
According to Adi's neighbor Fauzi Baraja, Adi teaches Koranic recital classes and owns a stall in front of his house.
Firman said that Adi was ongoing questioning somewhere in Surabaya.
In the fight against terrorism, Indonesian authorities have arrested dozens of people for their alleged roles in a string of terror attacks in the country since 2000.
Most of the terror suspects are alleged to have links with the Jamaah Islamiyah, a terrorist network in the Southeast Asian region.
Following the arrest of Adi, the East Java Muslim Solidarity Alliance, announced its plan to file a pre-trial motion against the police for possible misconduct during the arrest.
Alliance' lawyer Fahmi H. Bachmid said that the police should have shown the warrant before forcefully taking Adi, who was on his way to the mosque.
"We intend to file a pre-trial motion because we suspect there was a violation in the arrest procedure. We consider this an abduction as the police should have shown the warrant first," Fahmi said.