Arlina Arshad, Jakarta – Indonesia's "most wanted" terror suspect was behind bars Thursday after raids which left one officer wounded and uncovered a stash of explosive materials, documents and weapons, police said.
Islamist extremist Abdullah Sunata was captured alive in Boyolali district, Central Java, late Wednesday while two suspects were arrested and another killed in an operation in neighbouring Klaten district, police said.
A top security official said the bomb-making member of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) regional terror network was planning to bomb the Danish embassy in revenge for cartoons of the prophet Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper in 2005.
There were also indications of a plot to attack a ceremony to celebrate the founding anniversary of the Indonesian police force on July 1, he said.
"There were plans to attack the Danish embassy. Abdullah Sunata is the central figure in the plan," security ministry anti-terror chief Ansyaad Mbai told AFP.
After the deaths of terror leaders Noordin Mohammed Top and Dulmatin, and the capture and killing of scores of their disciples over the past 10 months, police said Sunata was the most-wanted terrorist still at large in the country.
"He's the number-one suspect we're after, since the other terror leaders have died. You can say he's the main figure," deputy police spokesman Zainuri Lubis told AFP.
Another Indonesian terror suspect considered far more dangerous, however, is Umar Patek, who has a one-million-dollar bounty on his head under the US government's Rewards for Justice Programme.
Patek, the alleged field coordinator for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, is thought to be in the Philippines although there have been unconfirmed reports of him re-entering Indonesia.
Sunata was arrested while travelling on a public bus from Solo to Jakarta, police said without confirming reports he was armed with a backpack bomb. "This is a significant arrest," senior police spokesman Edward Aritonang said.
Police allege he was a key facilitator of a Dulmatin-led militant group that had set up a training facility in Aceh province before it was dismantled by security forces in February. Dulmatin, another leading figure in the 2002 Bali bombings, was killed by Indonesian police in March.
A veteran of religious conflicts in Poso and Ambon, Sunata was released in 2009 after serving only a fraction of a seven-year sentence for his role in the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta which killed 10 people.
One of the other men detained in Central Java on Wednesday was identified as Sogir, who had also spent time in jail over the embassy attack, police said.
Sunata was a follower of late JI faction leader Noordin, who police killed in September last year after one of Southeast Asia's biggest manhunts.
Noordin was responsible for a series of terror attacks in Indonesia including the embassy bombing and twin suicide blasts at luxury hotels in Jakarta last year which killed seven people.
As details of Sunata's arrest emerged, Noordin's father-in-law, Baharudin Latif alias Baridin, 55, went on trial in Jakarta for allegedly sheltering the fugitive in his Central Java home as he prepared last year's hotel bombings.
"The defendant deliberately provided assistance and facilities to the perpetrator of terrorism by hiding from police the most-wanted terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top," prosecutor Firmansyah told the court. Latif's son, Ata Sabiq Alim, 24, was also put on trial separately for similar offences.