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Manila. Jakarta has asked officials here to track down an Indonesian fugitive wanted in connection with terrorist attacks at home and who is now thought to be training militants in an insurgency-racked region of the Philippines, officials have said.

An Indonesian Embassy official in Manila on Sunday confirmed his government had asked the Philippines to capture Sanusi, who fled in 2007 after being accused of ordering militants to behead three schoolgirls in the Central Sulawesi town of Poso, which experienced devastating sectarian clashes in the late 1990s and mid-2000s. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

In June 2009, Adj. Chief Comr. Herry Rudolf Nahak, from the Indonesian National Police’s antiterrorism unit, while in Manila for an antiterrorism conference, reportedly asked Philippine authorities to try to confirm the presence of Sanusi on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

According to two Philippine intelligence officials, Sanusi had been monitored in Mindanao while attending a mosque near the southern city of Cotabato during Ramadan last year.

A senior military official said Sanusi had emerged as a key operative of the regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah and was believed to have helped fund and organize religious and combat training for new Indonesian militant recruits in Mindanao.

But Sanusi has not been implicated in any attacks in the Philippines and is not on any terrorist blacklist because authorities are only just beginning to uncover his activities in the country, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his post.

Asludin Hatjani, a lawyer for convicted Indonesian terrorist Hasanuddin, a k a Hasan, a k a Slamet Raharjo, on Sunday said that Sanusi had played a major role in the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls in Poso in 2005.

“My client plotted the beheadings with Sanusi. They met several times and Sanusi is still at large today,” he said.

Hasanuddin, who was found guilty in 2007 in connection with the three murders, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Philippine military suspects at least 25 Jemaah Islamiyah members are currently operating in Mindanao, having mainly been given refuge by the Abu Sayyaf extremist group on the islands of Jolo and Basilan.

 

AP, JG