Man behind 2002 Bali bombing now tries to stop attacks

JAKARTA, Indonesia — When Ali Imron was an active member of the Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, he claimed he needed only two hours to turn a recruit into a killer.

“Two hours was all it took me to convince someone to become a suicide bomber,” he told the Washington Post. “So I know the power of terrorists. I know how compelling they can be.”

Imron, now 43, has been in prison since 2003 for assembling and transporting the explosives used in the Bali bombings, a terrorist attack in Indonesia that killed 202 people and left 200 more injured. From his cell in the Greater Jakarta Metropolitan Regional Police Headquarters, or Polda Metro Jaya, Imron says he now uses his skills of persuasion for good. He says he has dedicated himself to preventing others from making the same decisions he made — and he says he could do it more effectively if he were freed.

In the two decades since the Bali bombings, the Indonesian government has transformed dozens of ex-terrorists like Imron into prominent deradicalization advocates, carving out roles for them in the country’s wider efforts to confront religious extremism. The approach has increasingly come under scrutiny as Indonesia debates whether to grant greater freedoms to former terrorists.

Since the Bali bombings in 2002, few attacks on such a scale have occurred in Indonesia. Between 2003 and 2009, the Jakarta JW Marriot, the Australian Embassy and the Ritz Carlton were attacked, most likely by Jemaah Islamiyah, but those assaults did not cause a death toll as severe as in the Bali bombings.

This success in squashing the movement has been attributed to the police’s ability to arrest key players and dismantle the terrorism networks, as well as to deradicalization efforts by former members such as Imron.

“Post-Bali bomb, the police, with international support and pressure, moved relatively effectively in shutting down JI networks,” said Ian Wilson, a lecturer in politics and security studies at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.

From 2002 to 2019, Indonesia had a recidivism rate of less than 6 percent for those convicted of terrorism-related offenses, compared with 13 percent for crimes such as drug offenses, government data shows.

“I give the Indonesian authorities a lot of credit for their creativity,” said Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College who has been studying deradicalization programs across Southeast Asia. “The Indonesians have given … [former militants] really important soap boxes, which we would never do in the West.”

According to Judith Jacob, a security analyst at the risk and intelligence company Torchlight, Indonesia’s embrace of former terrorists in deradicalization efforts is rare. Only a handful of other countries have tried similar approaches, with varying degrees of success.

Since Imron’s arrest, Indonesian authorities have enlisted his help in a variety of ways, allowing him to visit schools and conduct television interviews from prison. In 2007, despite public backlash, he was allowed to publish a book warning others about the dangers of terrorist ideologies.

“It needs to be bigger than just the police,” Imron said of deradicalization efforts. “It has to be about prevention, not just arrests.”