Candra Malik & Joe Cochrane

Ngruki Islamic School Acknowledges Jakarta Bombing Suspect Among Graduates

Solo. An Islamic boarding school at Ngruki on the outskirts of Solo acknowledged on Tuesday that one of the presumed perpetrators of last Friday’s Jakarta hotel attacks was a graduate of the institution, founded by Abu Bakar Bashir, who was convicted of conspiracy and jailed after the 2002 Bali bomb attacks but later cleared.

Wahyudin, the director of the Al Mukmin Islamic Boarding School, said, “Nur Said was a student of the Madrasah Tsanawiyah [the equivalent of middle school] in 1988 and completed Kulliyatun Muallimin as-Islamiyyah [the equivalent of college level] in 1994.”

He had been in the same class as Asmar Latin Sani, who was convicted of the 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel. Asmar was reputed to have been a brilliant, outstanding student while Nur Said was less well-known.

Wahyudin said earlier reluctance by the school to associate its name with Nur Said was because of confusion over the spelling — he has also been known as Nur Rusdi, Nur Hasbi and Nur Hadi.

“We could not issue any statement or deny anything because in the news his name was spelled Nur Sahid, aka Nur Hasbi, or Nur Hadi,” he said.

“When it became clear that we’re looking for a Nur Said, with no H in the middle, it was easy to find it on our computer database or in the student registry.”

However, he refused to show the student registry, citing confidentiality issues. He said that if the request had come from the police, the school would cooperate.

The issue of the school’s possible link to the presumed bomber emerged on Monday, but police in Jakarta said they had not spoken of it.

Adjutant Sr. Comr. Aan Suhanan, Solo’s chief of police, said he would immediately cross-check the Al Mukmin data, following Wahyudin’s announcement. “We’re holding a meeting about it now,” he said.

Wahyudin said he did not know Nur Said at all. “If I don’t remember anything about him, it means there was nothing special about him, unlike Asmar Latin Sani, whose name alone sounded strange. I clearly remember telling Asmar that his name reminded me of the title of a nasheed [Islamic song],” he said.

Wahyudin said the school had nothing to do with the fact that both students were implicated in bombing the Marriott.

He said that after the two completed their studies at Al Mukmin, they returned to their families, and that the school was not responsible for the actions of alumni. “When [the alumni] commit a wrongdoing, it’s only natural that the school’s image is compromised. Even in the [Armed Forces] there are deserters.”

Wahyudin said the school was prepared to be blamed for terrorist acts in Indonesia, adding that terrorism was a term created to blacken the image of Islam. “The school in Ngruki has never approved the use of violence in advocating Shariah,” he said.

Wahyudin said violent measures should only be taken during a war, and that Islam prescribed certain rules and requirements before a war could be declared. “Indonesia doesn’t fit these conditions for war now. But if the bombers have a different opinion on war, especially if they think in terms of international jihad war, I’m not aware of it,” he said.

Even though the Al Mukmin school has again found itself implicated in terror bombings, Wahyudin said he saw no need to summon Islamic scholars to support Abu, the school’s founder.

Sidney Jones, a Jemaah Islamiyah terrorism expert from the International Crisis Group in Jakarta, said on Tuesday that there seemed to be a fixation on the school but it was probably a mistake to blame Ngruki today because the JI members who studied there and went on to commit terrorist attacks all attended before 1996. “If you look at who graduated from Ngruki, who went on to become bombers, most of them graduated before 1996,” she said.

“In the last 10 years, Ngruki hasn’t produced major participants in terrorism operations. It’s a mistake to look at Ngruki now as the source of the ongoing threat.

“The issue at the school is not the curriculum but the extracurricular activities, and that students were specially picked by teachers for special religious study circles.”

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