Agencies, Jakarta – The East Jakarta District Court has sentenced six people to death for masterminding a riot inside a detention center at the headquarters of an elite Indonesian police unit near Jakarta in 2018, killing five police officers.
On Wednesday, the court found the defendants, aged between 25 and 54, guilty of committing terrorism in the May 2018 incident at the Mobile Brigade headquarters, according to court officials, quoted by Kyodo News.
The riot had been planned in their cell block at the detention center in the town of Depok since January that year, according to the ruling. The detainees later made fake keys and held a drill to attack police officers, it said.
In the riot, over 150 detainees were holed up inside the facility for 36 hours after stealing guns and ammunition.
"Their brutality claimed the lives of five counterterrorism policemen," a panel of judges said in the ruling. One detainee was also killed in the riot.
In its official statement following the incident, the Jakarta Police said the riot started as early as 19.30 on May 9, 2018.
One of the detainees asked for food that had been brought by a family member, but the food was kept by another police officer. The detainee became upset and provoked others to protest and began rioting, starting in Block B and C. They broke down the walls and prison bars and went to the investigators' room, where they began assaulting officers investigating new detainees.
Most of those kept at the detention center were terror suspects, including members of the extremist Jamaah Ansharut Daulah militant group, which sympathizes with Islamic State.
JAD also claimed responsibility for multiple deadly bombings in East Java also in May 2018.
A family of suicide bombers linked to JAD attacked three churches across Surabaya on Sunday morning, killing at least 12 people and injuring 41 others. Two attempted bombings were reported at two other churches in the East Java capital.