Three Indonesian maids have been issued detention orders under the Internal Security Act (ISA) and are being investigated for financing terrorism.
They are Anindia Afiyantari, 33, Retno Hernayani, 36, and Turmini, 31. The three had been working in Singapore for between six and 13 years at the point of their arrests, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a statement yesterday.
These are the first foreign domestic workers to be issued such detention orders.
A fourth maid was also arrested as part of the investigation. Although she did not subscribe to these radical beliefs, she was aware that the others had been radicalised and did not report them. She has since been repatriated to Indonesia, MHA said.
The three maids, who were arrested in August, had become radicalised last year after viewing material online on terror group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Their convictions deepened after they joined pro-ISIS social media chat groups and channels.
Subsequently, they set up multiple social media accounts to post pro-ISIS material and donated funds to groups such as ISIS and Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), the ministry added. JAD is an Indonesia-based ISIS affiliate that has been banned by Jakarta.
MHA said the three women were initially drawn to the violent visuals disseminated on pro-ISIS platforms. These included bomb attacks and beheading videos by the group, as well as propaganda on its past battlefield victories. The three were also influenced by online sermons from radical Indonesian preachers such as Aman Abdurrahman and Usman Haidar Seff.
Aman was the de facto leader of JAD, and was sentenced to death last June for inciting others to commit terrorist attacks in Indo-nesia. JAD was responsible for several recent terrorist attacks and foiled plots, including last year's Surabaya suicide bombings.
Usman was a member of regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), and was sentenced to three years in jail in 2004 for harbou-ring a senior JI member following the 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing in Jakarta.
MHA said the three maids became acquainted with one ano-ther around the time that they became radicalised.
Anindia and Retno first met at a social gathering in Singapore, while Turmini connected with them on social media.
They developed a network of pro-militant foreign online contacts. These included online "boyfriends" who shared their ideology.
Anindia and Retno both intended to travel to Syria to join ISIS, and Anindia was prepared to become a suicide bomber.
All three women also donated funds to overseas groups for terrorism-related purposes, and Turmini believed that doing so would earn her a place in paradise.
Singapore has identified a total of 19 radicalised foreign domestic workers since 2015. All have been repatriated apart from Anindia, Retno and Turmini, who are still being investigated.
"None was found to have had plans to carry out acts of violence in Singapore, but their radicalisation and association with terrorists overseas had rendered them a security threat to Singapore," MHA said.
It added: "The fact that all three individuals in the present case were radicalised in 2018, at a time when ISIS' physical territory was already significantly diminished, highlights the enduring appeal of ISIS' violent ideology."
