Six men were arrested in Batam on Aug 5 in connection with the terror plot against Singapore.
One of them was released later. He says he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mr Tegar Sucianto’s friend Hadi Gusti Yanda, 20, was one of the five Indonesians picked up by anti-terror police and later taken to Jakarta.
The pair were on the way to work when both were surrounded, pinned to the ground, had hoods placed over the heads and were bundled into a van.
Hours later, Mr Tegar, 19, learnt that his friend was a member of a terror cell group that had sworn allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
He tells The New Paper on Sunday that he was shocked, but also horrified that his friend had been actively trying to recruit him. And he had little clue.
Until the arrest, he thought he knew everything about the friend he had first met in secondary school seven years ago.
They grew up playing video games and football and both lived in the Batu Aji neighbourhood on Batam.
They even worked at the same Asus factory after they graduated last year.
Mr Tegar says: “Hadi seemed like a normal teenager, we were good friends.
“When we were growing up, I never noticed anything strange about him.”
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But Hadi changed last year and Mr Tegar says his friend would talk often about suicide bombers, Syria and ISIS.
He thought Hadi was just more religious than him.
“Hadi would always remind me to pray when I was lazy. It made sense that he knew all the news he talked about, I thought he was just keeping me up-to-date,” he says.
But then Hadi invited him to meet a religious group to learn more about Islam.
Mr Tegar resisted at first.
“Why should I go? I wasn’t really interested in all this religious knowledge.
“But Hadi would keep on asking,” he says.
Mr Tegar finally relented late last year. He agreed to travel with Hadi to the Nurul Islam mosque in the Muka Kuning district, about a 30-minute drive from their village.
Mr Tegar believes the hour-long meeting was the first time members of the terror cell Katibah Gonggong Rebus met.
There were six people at the meeting, but Mr Tegar says nobody knew each other.
“They had only communicated via chat groups in WhatsApp and other apps. It seemed like they were all meeting for the first time,” he says.
UNCOMFORTABLE
As the group introduced themselves and dwelled on religious issues, Mr Tegar became uncomfortable.
“I had no interest in what they were talking about and told Hadi I wanted to go home,” he recalls.
Before they left, they were all instructed to download the Telegram messenger app, says Mr Tegar.
He did as he was told and was added into a chat group.
Mr Tegar says he received hundreds of messages daily over the next few days.
He tried to ignore the conversation by muting the chat.
“I didn’t read it, there were so many messages. From what I saw, it was just a lot of things about Islam, like tips about how to pray and how to be a better Muslim.”
He claims he did not participate in the conversation and was kicked out of the group a week after he joined.
“I was surprised, but I was fine being kicked out without warning,” he says.
He deleted the Telegram app from his phone and the two friends never talked about the group again.
On Aug 5, Mr Tegar was giving Hadi a ride to work on his motorcycle when they were boxed in by several police vehicles.
The officers approached Hadi first, handcuffing him and blindfolding him before doing the same to Mr Tegar.
Mr Tegar says: “It was all happening so fast, I had no idea what was going on and I was panicking.”
The two were taken to the Brimob special police headquarters for questioning. Later, Hadi was taken away while Mr Tegar was made to wait in a police car.
“The officers were nicer to me than to Hadi.
They spoke to me in a friendly way and even apologised for arresting me,” he says.
Mr Tegar was released that evening after questioning and was home at 8pm. He was embraced by his worried mother, 42-year-old shop owner Desi Fitrianti.
She says: “I hugged him so tight because I was scared.
“All of a sudden in the afternoon that day, there were all these reporters knocking on my door, asking me if I knew that my son was a terrorist.”
He says of the experience: “Nobody’s really scared of me because they know that I’m innocent. Some people stare and ask me, but I’m honest with them, there’s no reason to be scared if I’m telling the truth.”
But he says of the man he thought was his friend: “I guess you never know people really. I never thought he would be someone like that.”
Indonesian authorities arrested a total of five suspects in an anti-terror swoop after preliminary investigations showed they were part of a little-known cell called Katibah GR or Cell GR. Hadi, along with the remaining four suspects, Gigih Rahmat Dewa, Trio Syafrido, Eka Saputra and Tarmidzi, were later taken from Batam to Jakarta for investigations.
They trained openly in public field
The terror cell did more than just try to build a rocket.
Reports say the Katibah GR was a coordinated group, with its own command structure, and it also conducted training sessions.
Led by 31-year-old Gigih Rahmat Dewa, the five-man group had a field coordinator in Trio Syafrido, 46, and weapon assemblers in Eka Saputra, 35, and Tarmidzi, 21.
Hadi Gusti Yanda, the youngest of the group at 20, was its treasurer.
With the exception of Syafrido, a bank officer, the Indonesian authorities say the men were factory workers.
The group had trained openly with replica guns in a public field near the Nongsa district, located in the north of Batam.
Batam District Police Chief Helmi Santika says they used the field for shooting practice, complete with mock guns to simulate real-life battles.
Mr Helmi says: “Unlike other terror groups, which train in the forests, they exercised and practised handling airsoft guns (a type of replica gun) in a field near a housing estate.”
SEIZED
These guns, including one fashioned to resemble an AK-47, were seized by police and taken to Jakarta for investigations.
The police also seized bomb-making materials, a laptop and other weapons from the homes of the suspects, including a bow and arrow set.
The five men from the KGR are also accused of sheltering two suspected Uighur militants.
Police are now tracking down other members of Gigih’s cell on the island as well as in other parts of Indonesia.
The New Paper on Sunday met Hadi’s father on Aug 10 at his village.
Other foiled terrorist plots
CHANGI AIRPORT PLOT
Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorist and leader of a group of Singaporean JI members, Mas Selamat Kastari Mas Selamat (above), plotted to hijack a commercial aircraft in Bangkok and crash it into Changi Airport.
The 2002 plot was thwarted by Singapore intelligence.
In 2001, Mas Selamat had escaped the dragnet through which several JI members were arrested.
He fled Singapore after authorities uncovered a JI plot to launch terrorist attacks on Yishun MRT station and American naval vessels in Singapore.
To retaliate against the JI arrests, he hatched a plan with JI commander Hambali in southern Thailand to hijack a plane and crash it into Changi Airport.
Mas Selamat and other JI members bought tickets for an Aeroflot flight from Bangkok to Singapore.
His plan was to storm the cockpit before landing and crash the plane into the Changi airport tower.
But their plan was disrupted when authorities got wind of it.
Mas Selamat and his team decided not to board the plane when their identities were exposed in the Thai newspapers.
Mas Selamat knew it would be dangerous for him to arrive at the airport.
A fellow JI member, Mohammad Hassan, a Singaporean, also revealed to a South Jakarta District Court that they backed out after the media uncovered details about their plot.
BOMB PLOT
In 2001, some JI members planned to bomb several targets in Singapore, such as the US and Israeli embassies, the Australian and British high commissions, Sembawang Wharf and Changi Naval Base.
Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) foiled the plans.
Fiah Musa, one of JI’s cells, was approached by foreign terrorists to assist in a plan to bomb these targeted locations in Singapore.
The foreigners went by the code names of “Sammy” and “Mike”.
Along with cell members, they conducted surveillance of several targets.
The footage was downloaded onto a VCD that was labelled “Visiting Singapore Sightseeing”, a title used to evade suspicion.
Sammy and Mike told Fiah Musa that they wanted 21 tonnes of a chemical, ammonium nitrate, to make the bombs.
As they had already procured 4 tonnes in Malaysia, they wanted the cell members to help obtain the remaining 17 tonnes of the chemical.
Ammonium nitrate is a commonly used fertiliser that can be used in the manufacture of explosives.
The men planned for trucks to hold the ammonium nitrate.
But the men’s attempts to order the nitrate gave them away and alerted the Government to the extremist group’s plans.
A Fiah Musa member tried to obtain the nitrate through a local vendor. But he was arrested before he could settle the deal.
Through data mining and investigative legwork, the ISD identified Mike as an Indonesian named Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, and Sammy as a Canadian named Mohammed Mansour Jabarah.
From investigations, the ISD suspected that Mike could have possessed a Philippine passport and it informed the Philippine authorities.
The Philippine authorities arrested Mike.
Three hundred detonators, 1.2 tonnes of TNT and six rolls of detonating cords were discovered following his capture.
Fathur revealed that the explosives were meant to be used on Singapore.
This article was first published on August 14, 2016.
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