Australia to help rehabilitate convicted Indonesian terrorists

Self-described military commander of the south-east Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah Abu Dujana, centre, is escorted by police officers before his trial in Jakarta in 2007. Photo: AP

Jakarta: Abu Dujana, the self-described military commander of the Islamic extremist group behind the Bali bombings, is among the convicted terrorists to be released from Indonesian prisons this year.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told a high level counter-terrorism meeting hosted by the US Secretary of State John Kerry that Australia and Indonesia would work together to rehabilitate hundreds of convicted terrorists expected to be released from Indonesian prisons in the coming years.

Convicted Indonesian militant Hasanuddin before his trial in 2007. Photo: AP

Adhe Bhakti, a researcher at the Jakarta-based Centre for Radicalism and Deradicalisation, said the "big names" to be released on parole this year were Abu Dujana, Abu Husna and Hasanuddin.

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Abu Dujana, a self-proclaimed Jemaah Islamiah leader and one of Indonesia's most wanted men until his arrest in 2007, will go on parole this month. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail for his role in the Poso murders.

Abu Husna, a senior militant who was sentenced to eight years jail for helping Abu Dujana evade police, was released last month.

Abu Dujana on trial in Jakarta in 2008. Photo: AP

"We are aware that in the coming years a significant number of prisoners in Indonesian prisons who have been convicted of terrorist related activities will be released, it runs to the hundreds, and of course if they have not been rehabilitated then they pose a serious risk, not only to our country but to our region," Ms Bishop said after the meeting.

Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, said the joint project had been discussed during Justice Minister Michael Keenan's visit to Jakarta earlier this year.

"This is Australia's commitment," Mr Luhut said. "We haven't talked in details about the form of cooperation or when it will start. If possible, we want to have it soon. Part of the assistance is also in the form of funding."

There are about 300 convicted terrorists currently serving sentences in Indonesia's 26 prisons. Over the past couple of years about 90 have been released a year.

Indonesian terrorism analyst Noor Huda Ismail said of the 400 released since the first Bali bombing in 2012, at least 40 had been repeat offenders.

It these repeat offenders who are the main concern, according to Mr Huda, the founder of the Institute for International Peace Building in Indonesia.  

Mr Huda is working with convicted terrorists released from jail and their parole officers on the reasons for individuals' involvement in terrorism, such as friendship or ideology.

Fifteen people have already graduated from his program.

"One of the problems is that individuals who go back to violence tend to go back to their old network," Mr Huda said.

"We help them to find a job and a completely new community."

Mr Huda said if his initiative was successful the Indonesian government would seek to multiply it.

A 2013 report by the Institute of Policy Analysis of Conflict found that the Indonesian government had little capacity to provide adequate post-release monitoring.

For example former JI member Bagus Budi Pranoto, also known as Urwah, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for harbouring a militant.

Soon after he was involved in the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel bombings in Jakarta in 2009, reportedly after coming into contact with other convicted terrorists while in jail.

"A few months later, when police broke up a terrorist training camp in Aceh, they found that more than two dozen recidivists had some association with the camp," the report, 'Prison Problems: Planned and Unplanned Releases of Convicted Extremists in Indonesia' says.

"The need to know more about prison networks and post-release activities suddenly became pressing."

The report said the problem was that systems were not yet in place to keep track of individuals who were considered potential problems.

"The question that the Indonesian government and donors need to ask … is what interventions need to be put in place to ensure that credible risk assessments can be made and appropriate programs put in place, not only in prisons but in the communities to which parolees are returning."

Source: Australia to help rehabilitate convicted Indonesian terrorists