JAKARTA – Indonesia has detained a British woman named on a list of global terror suspects, and plans to deport her over visa violations, authorities told AFP.
Tazneen Miriam Sailar – a Manchester-born convert to Islam once married to a now-deceased Indonesian jihadist – has not been charged with terror offences.
However, she and her late husband are on a police list of suspected domestic and foreign extremists, including a Frenchman who appeared in Islamic State beheading videos, and another close to the brothers who massacred staff at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Sailar, 47, and her 10-year-old Indonesian-born son are being held here after they were picked up last year on allegations that she did not have documents to remain in the Southeast Asian nation, according to her lawyer, Farid Ghozali.
“She was put (in detention) while awaiting her return, which will be facilitated by the British embassy,” immigration directorate spokesman Ahmad Nursaleh told AFP, without elaborating.
The British embassy here declined to comment, and it is unclear when the deportation will happen.
The police document does not say why Sailar is listed along with some 400 other terror suspects, including her late husband, who was killed in Syria in 2015, said sources.
The couple’s 2010 marriage was officiated by radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual head of extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), according to sources familiar with the case.
JI members were behind the Bali bombings that saw more than 200 people, including nearly 90 Australian holidaymakers, killed when massive blasts ripped through a pair of packed bars on the Indonesian holiday island in October 2002.
Sailar operated a charity named after her late husband, which sent aid to women and children in conflict-wracked Syria, said sources.
She arrived in Muslim-majority Indonesia in 2005 as a medical volunteer for a Christian-based humanitarian foundation that assisted victims of natural disasters, said Farid and a source.
Alleged members of the Taliban and Islamic State appear on the Indonesian police list, as well as British Islamist Anjem Choudary and Sally-Anne Jones, an IS recruiter reportedly killed in a United States drone strike in Syria.
Maxime Hauchard, a now-dead French convert seen in a gruesome IS beheading video, was listed along with French jihadist Peter Cherif, previously charged with the 2011 kidnapping of three French aid workers in Yemen, and a close associate of the siblings who killed staff at Charlie Hebdo in 2015.
Sailar was born in Manchester on February 20, 1973 and holds a British passport, according to the list, which also said she goes by at least two aliases.
Indonesia’s counterterrorism squad questioned her, but no charges were filed, said her lawyer.
“So, we’re now focused on immigration matters,” he said, adding that Sailar wants to remain in Indonesia. – AFP, February 2, 2021
