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Jakarta eyes stricter security measures

Indonesia is considering tough new security laws that allow for detention without trial to help fight terrorism after last week's deadly bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, media reports said yesterday.

Military commander General Endriatono Sutarto said an internal security act was needed to arrest suspected terrorists before they could strike, Koran Tempo quoted him as saying.

"It seems that we need a preventive legal device," Sutarto, who is known to be close to President Megawati Sukarnoputri, told reporters on Monday.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Malaysia and Singapore both have internal security acts, which they used to arrest scores of suspected members of Jemaah Islamiyah, the al-Qaeda linked terror group accused in last year's Bali bombings and the Marriott attack.

The Marriott blast killed 11 people and injured almost 150.

Lawmakers and rights activists are likely to protest any laws giving more powers of arrest to Indonesian security forces.

Soldiers and police arrested thousands of anti-government activists and students under anti-subversion laws during the 32-year dictatorship of General Suharto, which ended in 1998 amid student protests and violence. After Suharto fell, the parliament revoked the laws.

Following the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, the government introduced tough laws allowing for the death sentence for those found guilty of terrorism.
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