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Eight Indonesians deported by Singapore released
[Straits Times] Eight Indonesians deported by Singapore early this week and questioned over suspected links to Daesh have been released. The men, aged between 16 and 37, were released on Thursday, police spokesman Saptono Erland said yesterday, after police concluded that they were not associated with Daesh. On Tuesday, the group of eight was stopped by immigration officers who found a photo of a "shoe bomb" on the smartphone of its leader. Indonesian authorities identified him by the initials REH, and said he is a 37-year-old religious teacher. "The group has returned to Padang, West Sumatra, after we cross-checked with the West Sumatra regional police, who confirmed that all eight men, including the teacher and his students, were from the Darul Hadith Islamic boarding school in Bukit Tinggi," Erland said. He noted that Indonesia's counter-terrorism unit, Densus 88, as well as provincial intelligence officers also determined that the group had no links to Daesh. The men, from Bukit Tinggi in West Sumatra, had spent seven days travelling in Thailand and Malaysia before heading to Singapore on Tuesday. Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed that the men were deported to Malaysia because one of them had "images of security concern", including that of a shoe bomb and another of Daesh fighters. Riau Islands police chief Sam Budigusdian said the group left Padang on Jan 3 and flew to Kuala Lumpur to preach in Bukit Jalil. They later travelled to Malacca and Perlis, as well as Pattani in southern Thailand, before arriving at Woodlands Checkpoint from Johor at about 1am on Tuesday. General Sam said Malaysian investigators also concluded that the eight men did not embrace ISIS ideology and that REH had downloaded the illicit images into his smartphone from a WhatsApp chat mes- saging group, which he has since left. This was the third such case in the past one year involving Indonesians deported from Singapore over suspected links to Daesh. Last month, a man and a woman were sent back to Batam after it was discovered that he was helping the woman travel to Syria to join the militant group. Last February, four Indonesians from an Islamic boarding school in West Java were stopped in Singapore and deported because they had planned to travel to Syria to fight for Daesh. Posted by: ryuge 2017-01-16 |
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