Six men were arrested in Batam on Aug 5 in connection with the terror plot against Singapore.
One of them was released later. He says he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mr Tegar Sucianto’s friend Hadi Gusti Yanda, 20, was one of the five Indonesians picked up by anti-terror police and later taken to Jakarta.
The pair were on the way to work when both were surrounded, pinned to the ground, had hoods placed over the heads and were bundled into a van.
Hours later, Mr Tegar, 19, learnt that his friend was a member of a terror cell group that had sworn allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
He tells The New Paper on Sunday that he was shocked, but also horrified that his friend had been actively trying to recruit him. And he had little clue.
Until the arrest, he thought he knew everything about the friend he had first met in secondary school seven years ago.
They grew up playing video games and football and both lived in the Batu Aji neighbourhood on Batam.
They even worked at the same Asus factory after they graduated last year.
Mr Tegar says: “Hadi seemed like a normal teenager, we were good friends.
“When we were growing up, I never noticed anything strange about him.”
But Hadi changed last year and Mr Tegar says his friend would talk often about suicide bombers, Syria and ISIS.
He thought Hadi was just more religious than him.
“Hadi would always remind me to pray when I was lazy. It made sense that he knew all the news he talked about, I thought he was just keeping me up-to-date,” he says.
But then Hadi invited him to meet a religious group to learn more about Islam.
Mr Tegar resisted at first.
“Why should I go? I wasn’t really interested in all this religious knowledge.
“But Hadi would keep on asking,” he says.
Mr Tegar finally relented late last year. He agreed to travel with Hadi to the Nurul Islam mosque in the Muka Kuning district, about a 30-minute drive from their village.
Mr Tegar believes the hour-long meeting was the first time members of the terror cell Katibah Gonggong Rebus met.
There were six people at the meeting, but Mr Tegar says nobody knew each other.
“They had only communicated via chat groups in WhatsApp and other apps. It seemed like they were all meeting for the first time,” he says.
UNCOMFORTABLE
As the group introduced themselves and dwelled on religious issues, Mr Tegar became uncomfortable.
“I had no interest in what they were talking about and told Hadi I wanted to go home,” he recalls.
Before they left, they were all instructed to download the Telegram messenger app, says Mr Tegar.
He did as he was told and was added into a chat group.
Mr Tegar says he received hundreds of messages daily over the next few days.
He tried to ignore the conversation by muting the chat.
“I didn’t read it, there were so many messages. From what I saw, it was just a lot of things about Islam, like tips about how to pray and how to be a better Muslim.”
He claims he did not participate in the conversation and was kicked out of the group a week after he joined.
“I was surprised, but I was fine being kicked out without warning,” he says.
He deleted the Telegram app from his phone and the two friends never talked about the group again.
On Aug 5, Mr Tegar was giving Hadi a ride to work on his motorcycle when they were boxed in by several police vehicles.
The officers approached Hadi first, handcuffing him and blindfolding him before doing the same to Mr Tegar.
Mr Tegar says: “It was all happening so fast, I had no idea what was going on and I was panicking.”
The two were taken to the Brimob special police headquarters for questioning. Later, Hadi was taken away while Mr Tegar was made to wait in a police car.
“The officers were nicer to me than to Hadi. They spoke to me in a friendly way and even apologised for arresting me,” he says.
Mr Tegar was released that evening after questioning and was home at 8pm. He was embraced by his worried mother, 42-year-old shop owner Desi Fitrianti.
She says: “I hugged him so tight because I was scared.
“All of a sudden in the afternoon that day, there were all these reporters knocking on my door, asking me if I knew that my son was a terrorist.”
He says of the experience: “Nobody’s really scared of me because they know that I’m innocent. Some people stare and ask me, but I’m honest with them, there’s no reason to be scared if I’m telling the truth.”
But he says of the man he thought was his friend: “I guess you never know people really. I never thought he would be someone like that.”
Indonesian authorities arrested a total of five suspects in an anti-terror swoop after preliminary investigations showed they were part of a little-known cell called Katibah GR or Cell GR.
Hadi, along with the remaining four suspects, Gigih Rahmat Dewa, Trio Syafrido, Eka Saputra and Tarmidzi, were later taken from Batam to Jakarta for investigations.
