Bali blast suspect detained
2005-10-08 09:08
Bali, Indonesia - Police in the Indonesian province of Central Java have detained a Malaysian suspected of links to the October 1 Bali blasts that left at least 23 dead and wounded over 130, local news reports said.
Police refused to identify the suspect, who they said was arrested in Purworejo regency, but a source told the Jakarta Post that the 35-year-old man had allegedly come to Indonesia with two associates to preach. Surakarta Police chief Senior Commander Abdul Madjid confirmed that his officers were questioning the man.
Central Java authorities also said that police had identified and were searching for two others allegedly connected to the Bali bombings, and that a man thought to be one of the country's most wanted Malaysian fugitives, Noordin Muhammad Top, narrowly escaped a police raid.
Authorities have not yet identified the three suspected bombers, despite widely circulating photos of their severed heads and interviewing some 100 witnesses, but police in Denpasar, Bali said that authorities in Central Java were following up a report from someone who recognised the bombers.
Authorities have focused their hunt on traditional strongholds of Islamic radicals and members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist group, especially in Central Java, despite police saying that last weekend's blasts on Bali could have been the work of a "new generation" of suicide bombers.
Police and terror experts say that the bombers, one of whom was captured on videotape walking into the Kuta restaurant just before the detonation, were likely new recruits if they were affiliated with JI, and may have been affiliated only through the two most-wanted Malaysian terror suspects Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohammed Top.
Azahari and Noordin have been accused of helping to plan both the 2002 Bali blasts, which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, and the deadly attacks on Jakarta's JW Marriott Hotel in August 2003, which left 12 dead including one foreigner, and last year's blast outside the Australian embassy in the capital, which killed 11 Indonesians and wounded more than 100 people.
Meanwhile, the death toll from last week's triple suicide bombings in Bali rose to 23 after a worker at the restaurant targeted in Kuta died after surgery, a family member said.
Endri Kartika, 19, a cashier at Raja's restaurant, had been in a coma since the October 1 attack and died Friday night after a failed surgery.
Kartika suffered severe wounds to her face and body, and the surgery was the second since she was admitted to Sanglah Hospital. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA