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The government’s deradicalization program aimed at getting convicted terrorists to renounce violence has been declared a failure in the wake of this week’s arrest of suspect Abdullah Sonata, who was released from prison in 2009 on good behavior.

“We have to say that generally the program has failed,” Minister of Justice and Human Rights Patrialis Akbar said on Friday. “There are convicts who have successfully been re-integrated back into society, leaving behind their old ways. But successes are few compared to those who remain unreformed.”

“It is extremely difficult to reform terrorists because we are trying to destroy years of indoctrination and misinterpretation of Islam,” he said. “We will solicit help from psychologists, experts, criminologists and clerics to determine the best means to reform hard-core terrorists.”

Sonata, 32, was arrested on Wednesday for his suspected involvement in a plot to carry out Mumbai-style attacks in Jakarta that police said targeted several high-profile figures, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Police also worry that the prisons themselves may act as breeding grounds for terrorism. A suspect killed in this week’s raids, former soldier Yuli Harsono, 33, became radicalized while serving jail time for smuggling ammunition, police said.

“Abdullah Sonata was a convict. He served time. Inside prison, did he improve himself?” National police spokesman Edward Aritonang told reporters.

It is time to find a “new system or method, so the counseling for prisoners truly works and prisons don’t become schools for radicalization,” Edward said.

Local terror deprogramming efforts have been led largely by police, unlike similar programs in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Singapore. The main thrust behind the police efforts is getting prisoners to give up violence and co-opting them as informers. While officers provide financial help to reformed inmates and their families, little is done to challenge their radical religious beliefs, such as the goal of imposing Islamic rule.

Since the 2002 Bali bombings, analysts credit a security crackdown that has netted nearly 600 militants for keeping terrorism in check. Of those, only 20 are considered reformed and actively working with police.

There have been some success stories, most famously Nasir Abbas, a former Al Qaeda-linked militant who helped train the Bali bombers. After his 2004 release from prison, he became instrumental in helping hunt and arrest several of his former comrades.

But the list of disappointments is long. Bomb-maker Bagus Budi Pranoto was in the deradicalization program while serving a four-year sentence for his role in the 2004 Australian Embassy bombing in Jakarta. He helped carry out last year’s attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in the capital.

Sonata was arrested in 2005 for possession of weapons and for hiding Noordin M Top, the slain terrorism mastermind.

Behind bars, Sonata was viewed as a shining example of how criminals can change. “He was a nice person, cooperative with our rehabilitation program,” said Noor Huda Ismail, executive director of the Inscription Peace Foundation, established in 2008 to turn terrorism inmates around. “But in the end, he was a failure.”
 

AP, AFP