An Indonesian court on Tuesday (July 31) banned the Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), the country’s most active militant group responsible for various recent terror attacks, along with groups linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), like reported by straitstimes.com.
JAD was charged last Tuesday with being an organisation responsible for widespread terrorism, the loss of lives and the destruction of property.
The verdict would allow the authorities to arrest and prosecute any member linked to the group, including sleeper cells, which is behind several terror attacks, including a gun and suicide-bomb attack in Jakarta in 2016 that left four bystanders dead.
The group has also pledged allegiance to ISIS.
“There is convincing evidence… of terror attacks that were carried out by members of JAD in various places in Indonesia,” presiding judge Aris Buwono Langgeng told a courtroom in Jakarta as former JAD leader Zainal Anshori sat in the defendant’s seat.
JAD was formed in October 2014, four months after ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of a caliphate, or Islamic state, in the territories it controlled in Iraq and Syria.
In late May, Indonesia passed an anti-terror Bill that allows the authorities to make pre-emptive arrests and detain terror suspects for longer periods, based only on preliminary leads.
The new law also penalises anyone who is a member of any group declared by a court as a terrorist organisation, even if the person has not committed a concrete act of planning or launched an attack.
This stipulation would allow police to act pre-emptively before an attack is carried out.
Under the new law, anyone being a member or anyone recruiting others to be members may face a minimum of two years’ jail and maximum of seven years. Founders, leaders, officials, or anyone controlling the organisation face a minimum of three years’ jail and a maximum of 12 years.
