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Monday, July 10, 2017

Man who put up ISIS flag at Jakarta Police Station arrested

Police arrested a 20-year-old man identified as Ghilman Omar Harridhi who is suspected of putting up an ISIS flag as well as leaving a threatening note at the Kebayoran Lama police station in South Jakarta on July 4.

Ghilman was arrested on Friday evening at his home in Kebayoran Lama. The police say that he became a self-confessed affiliate of the terror group ISIS after learning about radical values online.

“The culprit learned radical beliefs from cyberspace since 2015, one of which came from a chat group in the app Telegram,” said National Police Chief Rikwanto, as quoted by Tempo yesterday.

Rikwanto added that Ghilman sought out radical teachings online of his own initiative.

“His motivation was that he wanted to warn law enforcement that democracy is haram (forbidden in Islam),” he said.

It’s not yet known what charges Ghilman would face.

On July 4, police officers found a flag put up on the outer fence of the Kebayoran Lama police station. There was also a note in an empty water bottle nearby that threatened law enforcement agencies to repent and stop idolizing pluralistic values, or face the possibility of ISIS turning Jakarta into a war zone like in the Southern Philippines city of Marawi.

Jakarta has experienced a spate of terrorist attacks in recent years, including the recent suicide bombing at a bus station in May that killed three police officers, as well as the bombing of a police station and subsequent firefight that killed eight in January 2016. ISIS claimed responsibility for both major attacks.

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