JAKARTA, RADICALISM STUDIES — Indonesia sentenced seven men Tuesday to up to five years in prison for links to Islamic State as the Southeast Asian country moves to clamp down on terrorism a month after a bomb-and-gun attack rocked the capital.
The ruling marks a tougher interpretation of Indonesia’s counterterrorism laws, which analysts said had hampered judges from convicting Islamic State supporters in the past.
“It shows that an awareness of the dangers of ISIS have now percolated down to the district courts,” said Adam Fenton, a senior researcher at the Jakarta-based Center for Radicalism and Deradicalization Studies.
The defendants were sentenced to between three and five years for crimes ranging from conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism to facilitating support for Islamic State by recruiting and helping Indonesians travel to Syria, where the organization is based. Prosecutors had sought between five and eight years.
Four of the men had traveled to Syria to support the radical movement between 2013 and 2014, including Ahmad Junaedi, a meatball seller from East Java who received a three-year jail term for conspiracy to commit terrorist acts that included joining a military-style training camp in Syria. The judges sentenced two of the men for helping Indonesians to travel to Syria. A seventh man was sentenced for facilitating acts of terrorism by spreading IS propaganda online.
Published by: www.wsj.com, Feb 9, 2016