| Publicity: | In a prison within a prison in central Java, some of Indonesia’s most dedicated and destructive terrorists are doing time for deadly crime. |
|
|
| There’s Abdul Ghoni who mixed the explosive cocktail that rocked Bali’s Kuta nightclub district in 2002 killing hundreds. Nearby, Anif Sochannudin wanders the prison courtyard. He volunteered to carry an explosive back-pack into a beachfront restaurant in Bali’s Jimabaran in the second wave of attacks in Bali. Someone else got the job and he got a prison term for his part in organising a bombing that killed 20. Abdul Aziz paces his cell anxiously awaiting parole and an end to his term for protecting terror king-pin, the late Noordin Mohammed Top. |
|
|
| They’re vehement Jihadis who have shown they’re prepared to take extreme action on behalf of Islam. Can they change? Well, many are changing for the worse. |
|
|
| Indonesia is discovering that many of its violent terrorist convicts are emerging from their prison punishment with a renewed zeal for jihad and are heading straight back into the terrorist fold. |
|
|
| “If I was still outside now it’s possible I would join the network again. Hate against the police has grown deep in my heart.” ANIF SOLCHANNUDIN – Terrorist |
|
|
| Indonesia Correspondent Matt Brown secured rare access to Java’s Kedung Pane prison to examine why terrorism and recidivism are rusted together and what if anything Indonesian authorities are able to do about it. Worryingly - right now – that’s not much. |
|
|
| “What the police are doing today is just cutting the tip of the iceberg. We need to find out why this guy is going back to the network, there must be a problem. There must be a weakness.” Cdr. TITO KARNAVIAN - Counter terrorism Unit, Indonesia |
|
|
| With the sensational re-arrest of Jemaah Islamiah father figure Abu Bakar Bashir and recidivists emerging in Aceh and from behind the smoking ruins of the Marriott in Jakarta, Brown discerns too little is being done by too few to address the problem. |
|
|
| “I think it’s extremely important for us to have de-radicalisation program, inside the prison and after because these people are driven by ideology. You can’t kill ideology by simply locking them in jail.” NOOR HUDA ISMAIL – Reform activist and author |
|
| Prison shots – gardens | Music | 00:00 |
|
| BROWN: Kedung Pane prison at Semarang in central Java is considered one of the best run in the country. It certainly looks after its lawns and tropical gardens, but don’t be thrown by the serene scenery. | 00:11 |
| Prison isolation block | Here in Kedung Pane’s isolation block are members of the most lethal terror cells in Indonesia, and as we’ll learn during our visit here, despite years in custody, they remain radical and prone to violence. | 00:27 |
|
| Music | 00:43 |
| Abdul Ghoni in prison | BROWN: Abdul Ghoni mixed the explosives used in the first Bali bombing. ABDUL GHONI: Even though we’re in Indonesia or in Java, | 00:50 |
| Abdul Ghoni | when we hear about what happens in Palestine or Afghanistan and hear the cries of the slaughtered, we will react. | 00:54 |
| Anif Solchanudin in prison | BROWN: Anif Solchanudin volunteered to be a suicide bomber in the Jimbaran attacks – the second Bali. | 01:12 |
| Anif Solchanudin | ANIF SOLCHANUDIN: If I was still outside now it’s possible I’d join the network again, seeing what’s happening – and my friends being suppressed without dignity. | 01:21 |
| Abdul Aziz in prison | BROWN: And Abdul Aziz found a hideout for one of the most notorious and prolific terrorists of all – Noordin Mohammad Top. | 01:38 |
| Abdul Aziz | As a Muslim, I had to help out another fellow Muslim. | 01:53 |
| Inmates pray | BROWN: These men offer an extraordinary window into a flawed system, seemingly incapable of stopping the terrorism cycle. | 02:01 |
| Photo. Noordin Mohammad Top | Music | 02:12 |
|
| BROWN: Noordin Mohammad Top was killed in a police raid last September. | 02:14 |
| Marriott CCTV footage | The last attack he plotted revealed the fatal flaws in Indonesia’s anti terror campaign. The suicide bomber at the Marriott Hotel targeted a group of Indonesian and foreign businessmen. The regular breakfast get-together included former President of the Indonesia Australia Business Council, Noke Kiroyan. | 02:21 |
| Noke Kiroyan. Super: | NOKE KIROYAN: Basically, these executives were from mining, oil and gas companies. and those related to these industries, so there were nineteen of us at the time. | 02:48 |
| Marriott bomber 3G video | BROWN: As the bomber closed in on his victims, he sent a mobile phone video stream back to his support team. NOKE KIROYAN: Well we were just sitting around, those of us who arrived early were just sitting on the couches close to the wall. | 03:01 |
| Noke Kiroyan | We’re talking, well shop talk, basically. | 03:16 |
| Marriott bomber 3G video |
| 03:21 |
|
| I sensed, rather than heard, this bang reverberate across the room and the blinding orange flash, | 03:25 |
| Noke Kiroyan | and I saw my friends who were sitting at the other end of the table, silhouetted against the wall, and that’s what I remembered last. | 03:37 |
| Aftermath of bombing | BROWN: The explosion killed three Australians, a New Zealander and an Indonesian waiter. | 03:46 |
| Noke Kiroyan. Super: | NOKE KIROYAN: I would ask why? Why did you do that? You don’t know me, then why did you try to kill me? | 03:57 |
| Rohmat Puji Prabowo in court. | BROWN: Among those brought to trial was a repeat offender, Rohmat Puji Prabowo. He was convicted in 2004 but released early, because every year on Independence Day, well behaved prisoners benefit from automatic reductions to their sentence. | 04:07 |
| Rohmat Puji Prabowo behind bars | ROHMAT PUJI PRABOWO: As far as I’m concerned, they do religious rituals well. They do good deeds, so I helped them. | 04:28 |
| Bashir | BROWN: From terrorist foot soldiers to the top tier, recidivism is rife. The notorious Abu Bakar Bashir has once again been detained. | 04:39 |
| Men in mosque | He was jailed over the first Bali bombings, then had his conviction quashed, but he’s also served time after attacks on Christian churches and a luxury hotel. | 04:51 |
| Aceh cell footage | Indonesia’s police now accuse Bashir of establishing a new terror cell discovered at a training camp at Aceh in February. Since then, they’ve found that at least twelve other cell members had already been jailed for terrorism. The revelation worries Tito Karnavian, the head of Indonesia’s counter terrorism unit. TITO KARNAVIAN: What the police is doing today is just cutting the tip of the iceberg. | 05:02 |
| Tito Karnavian. Super: | We need to find out why, why these guys are going back to the network. There must be a problem, there must be a weakness. | 05:35 |
| Prison | BROWN: It’s a weakness deep within Indonesia’s justice system. Over the past ten years, the Indonesian police have targeted terror networks stretching from Afghanistan to the southern Philippines into the heart of Indonesia. They’ve arrested around five hundred men and most have been locked behind bars. The trouble is, so far around two dozen have emerged from jail only to go straight back into active terror cells. | 05:45 |
| Kedung Pane prison workshop | Kedung Pane prison offers the usual array of workshops to keep inmates busy and give them basic skills for life on the outside. What this prison does not offer is a serious mainstream program aimed at reforming the hardliners. ANIF SOLCHANUDIN: For a long time I’ve hated the police. Since the bombings there’s been a lot of talk about arrests and the way people handle our brothers. | 06:19 |
| Anif Solchanudin | Hate against the police has grown deep in my heart. | 06:45 |
| Inmates | BROWN: Anif Solchanudin was a trusted member of the cell responsible for the second Bali bombings. To him, mass murder and suicide were honourable goals. ANIF SOLCHANUDIN: It started with empathy towards our friends who were shot and arrested after the bombings. | 06:52 |
| Anif Solchanudin | Second, there are high rewards if you die as a martyr – there’s a release from the torture of the grave and pleasurable rewards in heaven. | 07:17 |
| Jimbaran café bombing | Music | 07:28 |
|
| BROWN: In the end, others were sent on the deadly assignment. One of Anif’s cohorts walked into a beachside café at Jimbaran, south of Kuta, and blew himself up. In all that day, twenty victims died in a series of coordinated attacks. While Anif Solchanudin claims he knew no details of the plot, he still talks like an active member of a terrorist cell. | 07:31 |
|
| ANIF SOLCHANUDIN: It’s no longer hatred towards the Americans. We realise our enemy is also close by. | 08:13 |
| Anif Solchanudin | The target is now the institutions that fight our Muslim brothers in Indonesia – such as the police force. | 08:19 |
| Abdul Ghoni in prison. Table tennis | BROWN: Fellow Kedung Pane inmate, Abdul Ghoni, was jailed for life for his role in the first Bali attack. His jihadist ways were forged as a young man when he went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. ABDUL GHONI: When we hear that they’re being bombed without knowing what they did wrong, we ask what we can do to help. | 08:35 |
| Abdul Ghoni | Not only by showing sympathy but by taking action as well. | 09:00 |
| Bali bombing aftermath | BROWN: Like many extremists, Abdul Ghoni claims to approve of violence only in an active war zone. Still, when it comes to Bali, his only real regret is that the cell leaders didn’t kill American officials. | 09:12 |
|
| ABDUL GHONI: As a human being, sometimes I also feel sad that the end result of my actions was like this | 09:28 |
| Abdul Ghoni | and that some of the victims were not our intended targets. | 09:40 |
| Abdul Ghoni tends to birds in cages | BROWN: Last week, the prison authorities recommended Abdul Ghoni’s sentence be cut down to 20 years. That would make him eligible for further dramatic reductions. It’s a reward for good behaviour, and yet, alarmingly, he still expresses admiration for the men who planned the attack. | 09:56 |
|
| ABDUL GHONI: It could be right or wrong - whichever it is, God will forgive. We can only say it’s up to God to judge. | 10:15 |
| Abdul Ghoni | Personally, I think even if they did wrong, God will still reward them. It’s better than doing nothing. | 10:32 |
| Prison mosque | BROWN: Extremist ideology continues to fester inside this prison and incredibly, the convicted terrorists are held up as spiritual leaders by the prison authorities. | 10:42 |
| Sawad leads inmates in prayer | This Friday prayer is led by Sawad, another lifer the authorities say should have his sentence cut to 20 years. He claims he packed the explosives for the first Bali attacks because he had no one but the terror network to support him. The subject of his sermon is remorse, but he says if he had his time over, he’d do the same again. | 10:58 |
|
| SAWAD: If I was faced with a situation like that – where we were hungry and in need, | 11:30 |
| Sawad | I would take the chance in order to survive and then run away and forget about the consequences. | 11:39 |
| Inmates | BROWN: The jails bring unrepentant hardliners together with much less experienced recruits. Abdul Aziz who played a relatively minor role in the network, is one who’s made dangerous new friends. | 11:55 |
|
| ABDUL AZIZ: In prison we don’t have family so for help we turn to friends who understand us. | 12:10 |
| Abdul Aziz | That emotional bond is the most important thing. We feel close suffering the same fate. I didn’t know them before I came to this prison. TITO KARNAVIAN: The risk number one is that | 12:19 |
| Tito Karnavian. Super: | the process of indoctrination, recruitment, will be continued in prison and it is quite ironic, because out of prison, these networks are supposed to be the clandestine network, yeah? | 12:43 |
| Inmates play table tennis | But in the prison they can do it freely. BROWN: The police have had limited success | 12:56 |
| Inmate activities | turning prisoners and using them as valuable informants. But they now argue Indonesia desperately needs a comprehensive de-radicalisation program. | 13:02 |
|
| TITO KARNAVIAN: We need to put a mechanism, appropriate system in which it can rehabilitate or de-radicalise the mindset of these people | 13:15 |
| Tito Karnavian | and to prevent them from going back into the network. | 13:23 |
| Noor Huda Ismail visits inmates | NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: I think it is extremely important for us to have de-radicalisation program inside the prisons and after the prisons | 13:33 |
| Noor Huda Ismail. Super: | because those people are driven by ideology. You cannot kill that ideology by simply locking them in jail. | 13:42 |
| Noor Huda Ismail visits inmates | BROWN: Noor Huda Ismail is uniquely placed to understand the challenge posed by violent extremists because as a young man, he was one of them. | 13:50 |
| Noor Huda Ismail | NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: I used to believe that this Indonesian Government is corrupt and I have to change them radically, even using violence. | 14:00 |
| Photos. Noor Huda Ismail at Ngruki | BROWN: The young radical was raised in the Ngruki school, the cradle of Indonesia’s modern terrorist network, run by none other than the same Abu Bakar Bashir who is once again in police custody. | 14:07 |
| Abu Bakar Bashir | NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: I had a very creepy background in the past. I shared a room with one of the Bali bombers when I was 12. And the founder of the school, is also the founder of the terrorist organization called Jemaah Islamiah. | 14:24 |
| Photo. Mubarok at Ngruki | BROWN: When the Bali bombers struck in 2002, Noor Huda Ismail was horrified to learn his old friend, Mubarok, helped plan the attack. | 14:36 |
| Police photo. Mubarok | NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: The police distributed a leaflet showing a picture of him, like, oh my God, he was my room-mate! | 14:46 |
| Noor Huda Ismail | And I have this personal question, what kind of trajectory, what are the journeys that make this individual become a terrorist? | 14:55 |
| Noor Huda Ismail visits inmates | BROWN: So Noor Huda Ismail took it upon himself to do something. He devised a modest pilot program and took it to the prison authorities. It’s now being trialled at Kedung Pane. | 15:13 |
|
| NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: There is a dying need for us to have a social intervention here, by | 15:26 |
| Noor Huda Ismail | providing different alternative, different views, different type of interaction among themselves. | 15:31 |
| Inmates in conflict resolution program | BROWN: The program aims at conflict resolution, not de-radicalisation. All of the serious offenders in the prison are forced to attend. And hopes for the terror convicts are limited. NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: I’m sure jail won’t change their ideology completely, but gradually we can change that level of threat by not putting into practice their violent ideology. | 15:43 |
| Noor Huda Ismail | So, simply disengagement might be the most realistic way. | 16:12 |
| Prison grounds. Inmates in conflict resolution program | What I have been doing is very sporadic, very small, very tiny and I need the support. | 16:20 |
|
| BROWN: These may look like schoolyard games, but Noor Huda Ismail’s program is about building a regard for human life and at least one inmate is showing signs of being tempered. ABDUL AZIZ: I have to think twice before judging someone. | 16:27 |
| Abdul Aziz | We learn in the conflict management course that everybody is different and we can’t force our will on others. | 16:48 |
| Noor Huda Ismail promoting book | BROWN: Noor Huda Ismail is taking his campaign beyond the prison walls. He’s hoping his new book, My Friend, the Terrorist, about the Bali bomber Mubarok, will change minds across the country. Too many Indonesians, he says, tolerate violent extremism. | 17:05 |
|
| NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: That is completely morally wrong not to say someone who kills civilian - innocent civilians - is a bad guy. He is a bad guy. | 17:24 |
| Noor Huda Ismail | We have to shout it loud. We have to grab the microphone and dictate the discourse. | 17:33 |
| Excerpt from Ismail’s film | BROWN: He’s also produced a film, including never before seen footage of the other terrorists who’ve since been executed. | 17:38 |
|
| FILM: [Terrorist] If there is a drop of blood spilt in the Eastern Hemisphere it has become an obligation for Muslims in the Western Hemisphere to avenge it. There’s no difference between Islam in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Indonesia. | 17:49 |
|
| NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: I think the most important thing is acknowledging the problems. Part of us, Muslims, actually committed such bombing. | 18:06 |
| Noor Huda Ismail | Yes, part of us did it, this is Muslim problems and we as Muslims must take tackle this issue carefully. Don’t try to clean your hand as if nothing happened. | 18:16 |
| Noor Huda Ismail at fish farm | BROWN: Convicted terrorists who are eventually released, are cast into a void. There’s no employment program and no support to keep them on the straight and narrow. Here again, Noor Huda Ismail’s trying to do his bit, putting a few to work at this fish farm. | 18:29 |
|
| NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: The community constantly stigmatise them as a terrorist, | 18:48 |
| Noor Huda Ismail | so they don’t have enough room to prove themselves that they are not terrorists. | 18:53 |
| Harry Setya Rachmadi at fish farm | BROWN: Harry Setya Rachmadi is another graduate of the jihad in Afghanistan and the Philippines, and was also convicted for sheltering kingpin Noordin Mohammad Top. | 18:59 |
|
| HARRY SETYA RACHMADI: He told me about the life of Muslims, the mass murder of Muslims and how they are oppressed. | 19:12 |
| Harry | You couldn’t help but feel moved. | 19:36 |
| Harry Setya Rachmadi at fish farm | BROWN: At the fish farm, this ex-con has found a new sense of purpose. | 19:45 |
| Harry | HARRY SETYA RACHMADI: First I have a dream. I want to have my own house, my own car. I want to have my own… everything. So it must be paid (for). What can I do? Search for a job. | 19:52 |
| Harry Setya Rachmadi at fish farm | Let’s use our skills to benefit us, our family, and society in general. | 20:14 |
|
| BROWN: But not all those Noor Huda Ismail is helping change their lives for the better. Sometimes the pull of old friends and their old ways proves too great. Another former inmate has gone missing and Noor Huda Ismail fears the worst. | 20:20 |
|
| NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: The group’s trying to get him all the time to join - and then he doesn’t want to continue his work looking after the fishpond. | 20:41 |
| Noor Huda Ismail | And there’s a strong possibility now that he’s now close to the group again. | 20:49 |
| Noor Huda Ismail at prison | BROWN: The jury is still out on whether extremists can really ever be de-radicalised, and those at the coalface are acutely aware of the pitfalls. | 20:55 |
|
| NOOR HUDA ISMAIL: I understand that my program has a lot of weaknesses and there are no silver bullets to tame those terrorists easily. | 21:07 |
| Noor Huda Ismail | We need patience, we need hard work and we need a systematic effort to do this. | 21:16 |
| Prison grounds | BROWN: So far, the Indonesian Government has failed to tackle this issue head on. Instead, the haphazard system is making matters worse. | 21:24 |
|
| Abdul Aziz is the next due for parole. A date is yet to be set. | 21:36 |
| Abdul Aziz’s family home | A couple of hours down the road Aziz’s parents are making plans for his return. They’re so desperate to make sure he stays on the right track, they’re thinking of selling the family home to set him up in a small business. | 21:45 |
|
| FATHER: I’m sure he knows when he comes back he needs to raise his child. | 22:00 |
| Abdul Aziz’s father | God willing, I will guarantee he is not going to repeat it. After all this, I’m going to monitor him. | 22:05 |
| Prison | BROWN: But it may be some time before Aziz’s parents are reunited with their son. Spooked by evidence that so many former inmates go back to terrorism, the authorities have now frozen all parole. | 22:24 |
| Abdul Aziz in prison yard | Abdul Aziz is clearly resentful. ABDUL AZIZ: Should I forgive them? They beat us, tortured us, put us in prison because of what we did. Now they’re delaying my parole. | 22:44 |
| Abdul Aziz | If they think this is rehabilitation, they’re wrong! The longer they keep us here and away from our family the stronger the jihad spirit becomes! | 23:07 |
| Inmates pray | BROWN: Despite years of lip service, the Indonesian Government is only now searching for a better way to handle this serious problem. Dashed hopes and a deeply flawed system have already proved a recipe for disaster. | 23:21 |
| Inmates shut into cells | TITO KARNAVIAN: As long as we’re not able to contain the spread of ideology and not able to rehab these people -- prevent them from going back to the network – | 23:39 |
| Tito Karnavian | Then, they’re radical, they are violence prone. It’s just a matter of time til they’re committing an attack. | 23:48 |
| Inmates shut into cells | Music | 23:56 |
| Credits | Reporter: Matt Brown Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen Camera: David Anderson Ari Wu Research : Ari Wu Producer: Mary Ann Jolley “ Prison and Paradise “ footage courtesy of Yayasan Prasasti Perdamaian | 24:08 |