Indonesia’s Most Wanted Alleged Terrorist Abu Tholut Captured

Jakarta. One of Indonesia’s most wanted suspected terrorists, Mustafa, also known as Abu Tholut, was arrested by the Densus 88 National Police anti-terror unit in Central Java on Friday.

Central Java Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Djihartono told the Jakarta Globe that Tholut was arrested at his house in the Bae subdistrict of Kudus, Central Java, at 8.30 a.m.

“He was arrested in his bedroom. He had an FN gun in his possession and several plastic bags full of bullets,” Djihartono said, adding that Tholut did not resist arrest.

Tholut is being taken to Jakarta for questioning. Dijhartono declined to give further details on the arrest.

Suwarto, head of the neighborhood where Tholut lived, was quoted by the Republika daily as saying the suspect was known in the place as Imron and lived with his wife and seven children.

He said Tholut had been living in the area for three years.

Tholut, who goes by several aliases, including Pranata Yuda and Imran Baehaqi, is alleged to be the field leader in the armed robbery of the CIMB bank in Medan, North Sumatra, in August which left one policeman killed and two security guards seriously injured. He is also suspected of leading a series of other violent robberies in the same city and its surroundings areas between April and August. They included bank branch offices and money changers.

Police have said the robberies were carried out in an attempt to raise funds for an armed group which had conducted a military training in a forest in Aceh. Tholut is alleged to have organized said militant training camp, which became the subject of an intense police crackdown in February.

The group is believed to be planning Mumbai-style attacks, including targeting foreigners and other “infidels.”

Born in Semarang, Central Java, in December 1961, Tholut qualified as a veterinarian after a checkered stint studying medicine. In 1985, he went to Afghanistan to join the Mujahideen force in fighting the Soviet-backed regime there.

He is also believed to have trained militants from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf at Camp Hudaibiyah in the southern Philippines.

He was accused of recruiting militants to fight during the bloody sectarian strife in Poso, Central Sulawesi, between 1998 and 2001, the same year he was linked to the bombing of Central Jakarta’s Atrium shopping mall.

In 2004, he was convicted for the possession of explosives by a court in Jakarta but only served three years of his seven-year jail sentence, having been released for good behavior in 2007. Tholut also took part in the state’s much-derided de-radicalization program on released terrorist detainees