Indonesia terror cell leader jailed for 11 years

An Indonesian court on Thursday sentenced the provincial chief of a radical Islamist group that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terror organization to 11 years in prison.

A court in Jakarta sentenced Wawan Kurniawan, alias Abu Afif, head of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) in Pekanbaru, capital of Riau province, for setting up a training centre for militants and instigating an attack on a provincial police station in May, Efe news reported.

A three-judge bench said that Abu Afif had prepared explosives and was arrested in possession of firearms.

The public prosecutor's office had sought 13 years for Abu Afif, who was arrested by the anti-terror unit Densus 88 in October 2017.

Abu Afif was in prison during the JAD attack on the police station in Pekanbaru, on Sumatra island, in which four assailants and one police officer died.

JAD was founded in 2015 and the US State Department classified it as a global terrorist organization in January 2017.

Indonesia, where Muslims account for 88 per cent of the 260-million strong population, has seen several Islamist terror attacks, including one on the popular tourist resort island of Bali in 2002 that claimed 202 lives.

--IANS

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