A Jakarta court has sentenced a female would-be suicide bomber to seven years in prison after she confirmed to having planned an attack on the Indonesian presidential palace in in 2016. The woman, Dian Yulia Novi, 28 was arrested alongside her husband who is also standing similar charges late 2016 on suspicion of blowing herself up during the changing of guards at the palace.
Novi becomes the first woman to be convicted to terror related crimes in Indonesia which have seen an upsurge of terror activities said to be inspired by ISIS. The upsurge in terror activities and terrorists can also be credited to the fact that Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.
Prosecutors told the court that the police had intercepted a letter that Novi intended to send to her parents stating her intention to carry out jihad. Later an unexploded bomb was found in a room Novi had rented in Bekasi, about an hour outside Jakarta.
While it is a major win for the counter-terrorism efforts in the country, security agents are worried that the militants are employing more sophisticated and covert methods ad channels to carry out attacks including the likely use of ‘dirty bombs’.
