Noordin's Father-in-Law on Trial over Jakarta Bombings

(News Today) - The father-in-law of slain Malaysian terror leader Noordin Mohammed Top went on trial in Indonesia on Thursday, facing up to 15 years in prison for helping one of Asia’s most wanted men evade capture. Baharudin Latif alias Baridin, 55, was arrested five months after suicide bomb attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta in July last year that killed seven people.

“The defendant deliberately provided assistance and facilities to the perpetrator of terrorism by hiding from police the most-wanted terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top,” prosecutor Firmansyah told the court.

Latif’s son, Ata Sabiq Alim, 24, was also put on trial separately for similar offences related to sheltering Noordin. Noordin was killed in a police raid in September, ending one of Southeast Asia’s biggest manhunts.

He led a group he called Al-Qaeda in the Malay Archipelago and was responsible for multiple deadly attacks in the mainly Muslim country, including the hotel bombings and a truck-bomb blast at the Australian embassy in 2004. The trial opened in the South Jakarta District court a day after police arrested another one of Indonesia’s most-wanted terror suspects, Noordin loyalist Abdullah Sunata.

Sunata was captured alive in a district of Central Java province while two suspects were arrested and another killed in an operation in a neighbouring district, a police source said. Explosive materials and information suggesting a plot to attack the Danish embassy in Jakarta were reportedly found in the raids, although this has not been confirmed.

A veteran of religious conflicts in Poso and Ambon, Sunata was released in 2009 after serving only a fraction of a seven-year sentence for his role in the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta which killed 10 people. Police said he was also a central figure in the establishment of a terror training camp which was disrupted in Aceh province earlier this year.

That cell was led by Dulmatin, the mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people. Dulmatin was killed in a police raid in March, one of dozens of terror suspects killed or captured in Indonesia since February.

One of the other men detained in Central Java on Wednesday was identified as Sogir, who had also spent time in jail over the embassy attack, police said. Firmansyah said Latif had been a member of regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) since 1995 and led a local branch in East Java province in 2000.

“The defendant was introduced to Noordin Mohammed Top in 2005 when he picked him up in Pemalang town of Central Java and harboured him in his home in Cilacap of Central Java,” he said.

Noordin visited Latif’s house three times and married his daughter, Arina Rahmah, in 2006.

“After the marriage, Noordin lived in Baridin’s house,” Firmansyah said.

According to the International Crisis Group think-tank, Noordin married Rahmah in 2006 and the couple had two children. Rahmah was also arrested but denied knowing the true identity of her husband.

The 2009 hotel attacks were the first against Western targets in Indonesia since 2005 when Noordin’s JI splinter group allegedly bombed tourist restaurants on the resort island of Bali, killing 20 people.

Source : kompas

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