Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Abdullah Sonata (pictured), public enemy number one in Indonesia, was captured, along with three other terrorists, last night in the north of Klaten, a provincial town in Central Java. The four men were in the house of a local Muslim leader. After a shootout, three were arrested and one was killed by the anti-terrorism squad Densus 88.
Abdullah Sonata was part of the terrorist group led by Noordin Mohammad Top, the former most wanted man in Indonesia who died in a police raid last September. Noordin Mohammad Top is considered the mastermind of the Bali bombings of 2002 and those on the hotels in Jakarta in 2009.
Sonata was arrested while trying to catch a bus to Jakarta. Tohari and Agus Mahmudi, involved in the killing of two policemen in March in Kebumen and Purworejo were also arrested. Yuli Kars, an Islamic fundamentalist army deserter, who in April killed two police officers, was killed in the shootout.
Today the prisoners were transported to Jakarta and the police believes it will find more information on the connection between the terrorist cell of Aceh-Pamulang-Cawang and the Imam Abu Bakar Baasyr. The imam is believed to be a former leader of the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group responsible for of the bombing of a nightclub in Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people.
