Indonesia sentences IS recruiter to death

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Aman Abdurrahman, a leading Islamic State group recruiter and ideologue in Indonesia, was found guilty and sentenced to death Friday on charges that he incited five deadly attacks in the country while he was in prison on an earlier terrorism conviction.

The five-judge panel ruled that Aman, although he played no operational role, still shared responsibility for the armed attacks in 2016 and 2017, which killed nine people and wounded dozens more. Eight of his followers who staged the attacks also died.

Aman, 46, told the judges Friday he did not care about their verdict. Then he got on his knees and kissed the courtroom floor in apparent gratitude for their making him a martyr.

“His role was very important in spreading religious outreach online that made his followers conduct bombings,” the chief judge, Ahmad Zaini, told the court in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. “His followers who read his writings were inspired to commit terrorist acts.”

Police said they suspect Aman was also an inspiration behind two prominent attacks last month: suicide church bombings in Surabaya carried out by a family of six that killed 12 bystanders; and a jail uprising staged by terrorism detainees that killed five guards and a prisoner.

Still, he has not been charged in those incidents, which both occurred after his trial began. And during one court hearing, he condemned the Surabaya bombings for going against Islam because the perpetrators used children as suicide attackers — a stance that may have put him at odds with some supporters who hold even more extreme views, analysts said.