Cleric sentenced to death for ordering suicide bombings
A RADICAL cleric was sentenced to death today by an Indonesian court for ordering I s l a mi c S t a t e - a f f i l i a t e d militants to carry out attacks including a suicide bombing at a Starbucks in Jakarta in 2016.
Aman Abdurrahman, 46, who police and prosecutors said is a key ideologue for IS militants in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, kneeled and kissed the floor as the sentence was announced.
Hundreds of paramilitary and counter-terrorism police guarded the court building in the capital, Jakarta.
Fe a r s o f a t t a c k s h a ve g r o w n in Indonesia after suicide bombings last month in the country’s second-largest city, Surabaya, that were carried out by two families who included children aged as young as seven.
T we n t y- s i x p e o p l e d i e d in the bombings, including 13 of the family members. Police say the leader of those bombers was part of a network of militants inspired by Abdurrahman.
Prosecutors said Abdurrahman sent instructions from prison, where he was serving a terrorism-related sentence, for attacks in Indonesia that included the Starbucks bombing that killed four civilians and four militants, an attack on a Jakarta bus terminal that killed three police officers, and an attack on a church in Kalimantan in which a twoyear-old girl died.
Abdurrahman, who refused to accept the authority of the court and has called for shariah law in Indonesia, was jailed in 2004 after a bomb he made prematurely exploded at a house.
He was then jailed again in 2011 for his role in helping to set up a jihadi training camp in a mountainous area of Aceh province.