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Indonesia charges alleged mastermind behind Myanmar Embassy bomb plot

JAKARTA — A 23-year-old online herbal-medicine seller has been charged in an alleged plot to bomb the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta earlier this year.

JAKARTA — A 23-year-old online herbal-medicine seller has been charged in an alleged plot to bomb the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta earlier this year.

Sigit Indrajid was charged on Wednesday with planning the attack, classified as an act of terrorism. Two alleged bomb makers were arrested in Jakarta on May 2, the day before the bombs were allegedly to be set off.

State prosecutor Heru Anggoro said on Wednesday that Indrajid fled the city after learning of the arrests, going to Bangka, a small island off Sumatra, and returning on May 22, when he himself was arrested.

Indrajid, who is in police custody, appeared in South Jakarta Court on Wednesday, where state prosecutors read the charges against him, laid out the case and urged 10 years’ imprisonment. The defendant did not speak during the proceeding and declined to comment afterwards when approached by The Wall Street Journal.

He is scheduled to return to court on Nov 20, with the trial proceeding intermittently over about 30 days.

The police said the foiled bombing was meant to retaliate against Buddhist-majority Myanmar for violence against its minority Muslims. Clashes between Buddhists and Muslims have left more than 120,000 people — mostly Muslims — displaced, and more than 100 dead.

Indonesia has the world’s largest population of Muslims, and the violence in Myanmar has led to calls for jihad, or holy war, by hard-line Muslim groups there.

Mr Anggoro said Indrajid rented a house on the outskirts of Jakarta, where he met the two other men and asked them to join in the bombing. He said Indrajid used his Facebook account to tell a suspected terrorist “that the bombing would be done on May 3, 2013”.

In a separate trial, alleged bomb maker Achmad Taufiq testified on Wednesday that he was one of the two tasked to make the bombs, but he did not specify who gave him the task.

“This is a solidarity action for the Rohingya (Muslims),” he testified. “This is for the (purpose) of religion.”

Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has urged Myanmar to put a stop to the Buddhist-Muslim violence to prevent it from spreading across South-east Asia. Anger over what many Indonesians feel is harsh treatment of Muslims in Myanmar led to a clash between Muslim protesters and the Indonesian police earlier this year in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province.

In its case against Indrajid on Wednesday, the prosecution also accused him of posting news about violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority. The posts drew responses from his Facebook friends, who agreed that there must be “retaliation against the Buddhist infidels”, Mr Anggoro said. DOW JONES

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