Indonesia jails militant over Myanmar embassy plot

An Indonesian court has sentenced an Islamic extremist to six years in jail for conspiring to attack the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta to avenge the killing of Rohingya Muslims.
The South Jakarta district court yesterday found Rokhadi, alias Shiro, guilty of "evil conspiracy" for plotting the bombing as well as owning explosives to be used to blow up the front of the embassy, Okto Rikardo, a prosecutor who attended the trial, told AFP today.
The court added that Rokhadi kept pipe bombs in his house for three days before he passed them to another member of the group, Achmad Taufiq, who was sentenced to seven-and-a-half-years jail last week.

Rokhadi is one of several men who have gone on trial over the May bomb plot, which came amid anger in Muslim-majority Indonesia at persecution of the stateless Rohingya in mainly Buddhist Myanmar.
Police foiled the plan the night before it was due to take place.
Rokhadi had also attended a bomb-assembling class with other members of group, the court added.

His deeds, the judges said, had tainted Indonesia's reputation as a safe country and disrupted its efforts in combating terrorism.
Rokhadi's sentence is lighter than the prosecutors' recommendation of eight years. He said he would not appeal.
There have been a string of attacks on minority Muslims in Myanmar since 2012, mostly in the Rohingya's western home state of Rakhine. Hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands made homeless.

Indonesia has been waging a campaign against Islamic extremists over the past decade since a string of attacks on Western targets, and has succeeded in dismantling the most dangerous networks.
Sigit Indrajid, 23, confessed during his trial last month that he was the mastermind of the plot. He is due to be sentenced later this month.