Release International

Five militants arrested over a spate of terror crimes against Christians in Central Sulawesi say they were brainwashed by radical clerics linked to al-Qaeda.

The five men, seized in police raids last month, say they were indoctrinated by members of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah and told that it was their religious duty to kill Christians. All five had been lured by the promise they could avenge the deaths of Muslim relatives killed during inter-religious violence in the province between 1998 and 2001.

One of them, known as Basri, has reportedly confessed to murdering one of three Christian schoolgirls ambushed and beheaded in Poso in 2005. He told journalists at the national police headquarters in Jakarta that he had been trained in the ways of jihad (or holy war) by instructors linked to al-Qaeda.

Basri claimed he and his fellow detainees had been uneducated, aggrieved and vulnerable -- and so 'had no choice' but to sign up for violence. 'I did not know religion back then,' he said. 'So when the clerics told us to kill infidels as payback, we did it.'

Meanwhile, the trial of Hasanuddin, the alleged ringleader of the plot to murder the Poso schoolgirls, continues in Jakarta. Reuters reports that prosecutors in his trial have called for him to be jailed for 20 years. Two of his alleged accomplices are being tried separately.

• Continue to pray that God will comfort the families of the murdered schoolgirls during the militants' trials.
• Pray that the extremists' aims would be exposed as cynical attempts to divide communities. Pray that different faith groups would unite against this threat.

Back to top