Meanwhile, Attorney Says Islamic Cleric Will Not Answer Police Questions
From News Services
Indonesian police said they were making progress Thursday in their hunt for one of three suspects in the deadly bomb blast in Bali. And the attorney for the alleged spiritual leader of a Southeast Asian terrorist network said the cleric would not answer police questions.
Edward Aritonang, a deputy police spokesman, said investigators were checking the name and address of one suspect. He refused to release other details.
But chief investigator Made Mangku Pastika told Australian media that Indonesia had identified one of the three suspects and begun a manhunt in the sprawling Indonesian archipelago.
“We are sending now four teams of the police, the specialized police, to run after him. So far, there is no news yet, they are still trying to find him,” Pastika told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television late Thursday.
Pastika said a reliable informer had come forward after the release on Wednesday of sketches of three suspects.
Indonesian police described the men as 20, 27 and 30 and said they could be part of a 10-person group responsible for the nightclub bombings.
Pastika said investigators had received credible information from the informer, including the suspect’s name, address and other information. “So far, we don’t have any indication that he had links to any terrorist group, but we have already the specification of this man,” he said.
Despite a fitful start, the international investigation into the bombing, which killed almost 200 people on Oct. 12, appears to be moving more quickly. Police released on Wednesday sketches of three Indonesian suspects, said they were looking for 10 others and expected to release further details today.
But they are having less luck persuading Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir to cooperate.
Bashir is believed to be the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group recently placed on the U.N. list of organizations with suspected links to al-Qaida. The organization is believed to be responsible for the blast in Bali.
Bashir is being held at a police hospital in eastern Jakarta, recovering from what he said was a respiratory ailment. He was arrested Oct. 18 and is wanted for questioning in a series of Christmas bombings in 2000 that killed 19 people and an assassination plot against President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
One of his attorneys, Ahmad Taufik, said Bashir would not answer any police questions.
“The police said that they have enough evidence, so we’re asking them to prove their case,” Taufik said. “We ask them to show us anything they have.”
In a brief interview Thursday on Jakarta’s Metro TV station, Bashir challenged Indonesian officials to declare that they had not been pressured by foreign governments to arrest him in connection with the Bali bombing.
Bashir denied involvement and claimed that he was being made a scapegoat.