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Students get 4.5 years in prison for harboring terror suspects
Judges at a South Jakarta District Court handed down four-and-a-half year prison sentences each to three hard-liners for harboring terror suspects
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udges at a South Jakarta District Court handed down four-and-a-half year prison sentences each to three hard-liners for harboring terror suspects.
Fajar Firdaus, Sony Jayadi and Afham Ramadhan were tried separately. Sony and Afham were students at Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University while Fajar was a graduate of the university’s school of psychology.
They were found guilty of harboring two terror figures, Saefudin Zuhri and his brother Muhammad Syahrir, who went into hiding after police began seeking them for their alleged role in the July 17, 2009, bombings of the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta.
The attacks on the upscale hotels killed seven people — three Australians, two Dutch, and one each from New Zealand and Indonesia. More than 50 people were injured in the explosions caused by suicide bombers who posed as paying guests.
Both Zuhri and Syahrir were shot dead during a police raid at a boarding house rented by Afham and Sony in Ciputat, west of Jakarta, in September last year.
“We have convincing evidence the defendant provided sanctuary to the terror suspects,” presiding judge Didik Setyo Handono said at Afham’s trial.
Didik said providing a safe house to terror suspects ran counter to the antiterror campaign that Indonesia was vigorously waging. This, he said, was the reason why Afham, similar to Fajar and Sony, was also sentenced to four-and-a-half years, although he voluntarily surrendered to police.
Accompanied by his father, Muhammad Taufiqurahman, Afham turned himself in to police upon learning that his room had been raided by police special counterterror unit Densus 88.
When testifying at Afham’s trial, Taufiqurahman said he had no idea how his son ended up joining a radical group.
“Since he was a child, Afham behaved well and never made trouble. I didn’t see any signs he would became a radical,” Taufiqurahman said.
At earlier hearings, Afham acknowledged that he was reluctant to report Zuhri and Syahrir’s location to police because he had family ties to them. Syahrir was married to Afham’s aunt from his father’s side.
“I didn’t want Zuhri and Syahrir to end up dead like [another hotel bombing suspect] Ibrohim,” Afham once told the court. Ibrohim was killed during a police raid in the Central Java district of Temanggung in August last year.
When asked whether he wanted to appeal the verdict, Afham said he would consult his lawyer first.
Sony claimed he did not know that Zuhri and Syahrir were wanted by police for the hotel bombing. He said at his trial that he had received both Zuhri and Syahrir as a gesture of good faith for Afham.
Police have arrested more than 500 people linked to terrorism activities since 1999. Some top figures such as Noordin M Top, Dr. Azhari Husin, Dulmatin, Enceng Kurnia, Ibrohim and Saefudin Zuhri were killed in raids.
