Briton who married militant to be deported

AUTHORITIES said they plan to deport a British woman married to a slain Indonesian militant because of a visa violation and her alleged link to a hardline religious group.

Police said on Wednesday that Tazneen Miriam Sailar was taken to Jakarta’s immigration detention centre after Indonesia’s Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre linked her to the religious group Islamic Defenders Front, which was outlawed on Dec 30.

National Police spokesman Ahmad Ramadhan said Sailar, a charity fundraiser who grew up in Manchester, converted to Islam when she married a now-deceased Indonesian militant, Asep Ahmad Setiawan, in 2010.

Setiawan, a member of Indonesia’s al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network, died in a combat zone in Syria in 2014, Ahmad said.

The group was blamed for a series of attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

“We are still investigating whether she has a role in terrorist acts,” Ahmad said.

Sailar’s lawyer Farid Ghozali said her client had been a humanitarian activist for disaster victims in Indonesia and abroad since 2005.

“We are only focusing on her immigration offences as she has no terrorism charge,” Farid said.

Immigration authorities had been coordinating with British diplomats on her deportation, said Ahmad Nursaleh, a spokesman for the Directorate General of Immigration, adding that Sailar’s visa expired two years ago.

He didn’t say when the deportation would occur.

Sailar has a 10-year-old son born in Indonesia.

The politically influential Islam Defenders Front was banned after its leader, Rizieq Shihab, was arrested on charges of inciting people to breach pandemic restrictions by holding events with large crowds. —AP