Court hears account on arrest of blast suspect<\/p>\n
Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali<\/p>\n
A police detective gave the public on Wednesday the first real-
\nlife account of the difficulties police endured in tracking down
\nand apprehending one of the key suspects in the Bali bombing --
\nAli Gufron, alias Muklas.<\/p>\n
Adj. Com. Herlan Susilo told the court that police conducted
\nthe probe in utmost secrecy, providing the public with sketchy
\ninformation on the arrests made and suspects detained, but never
\ndisclosing the process that led them to the those breakthroughs.<\/p>\n
The investigation team, Herlan said, comprised several groups,
\nsmall mobile units of selected detectives capable of rapid and
\nstealthy seek-and-apprehend operations. There were times when
\nthese groups spent several days traveling at high speed across
\nJava to shorten their distance with the fleeing suspects and
\nmaintaining the element of surprise.<\/p>\n
Herlan was the first Indonesian police officer to testify in
\nthe court. He was part of the police's joint inquiry team Group
\nIII, tasked with tracking down and apprehending the suspects.<\/p>\n
\"I grabbed his collar and told him to freeze, but the
\ndefendant (Muklas) wrestled back. With his left hand he gripped
\nmy testicles and squeezed them hard, while simultaneously his
\nright hand tried to claw away the revolver in the hand of the
\nchief of the Delanggu police precinct,\" Herlan said.<\/p>\n
Muklas was arrested at Kepanjen village, Delanggu district,
\nKlaten, Central Java, at around early Dec. 3, 2002. He was
\nbelieved to have played a supervising role in the Bali bombings,
\nwhich left at least 202 people dead.<\/p>\n
The struggle took longer than it was supposed to be because
\nthe two officers tried not to harm the suspect.<\/p>\n
\"Two more officers entered the room and joined the scuffle. I
\ntold them to grab and lift the defendant's legs, to make him lose
\nhis balance. Out of confusion, they took the legs of their chief
\ninstead. The chief fell to the ground,\" Herlan said.<\/p>\n
Finally, they managed to take Muklas down, but, refusing to
\nsurrender easily, he tried to crawl into the corner of the room
\ntowards a black bag, which was later found to contain an FN semi-
\nautomatic pistol.<\/p>\n
\"The pistol was already cocked and had one bullet in the
\nchamber, and we also found eight more bullets. There was a U.S.
\nArmy 375573 number engraved on the pistol.\"<\/p>\n
Herlan recalled that Group III embarked on what became a two-
\nmonth-long operation on Java equipped only with rough eyewitness
\naccounts and blurry information from Amrozi, the first suspect
\napprehended by police.<\/p>\n
The breakthrough came when it succeeded in nabbing Muhammad
\nNajib Nawawi. The suspect later confessed that he had asked his
\nfriend Makmuri to provide temporary shelter to an unidentified
\nman at the latter's house in the village of Kepanjen.<\/p>\n
During a search of Najib's house, the officers found a picture
\nof Ali Imron, another suspect in the case. Najib confirmed that
\nit was the picture of the man, who was holed up at Makmuri's
\nhouse.<\/p>\n
Herlan hastily went to Kepanjen after acquiring a sketch of
\nthe house's inner layout from Najib.<\/p>\n
\"Accompanied by the chief of the Delanggu police precinct and
\ntwo officers, we quietly surrounded Makmuri's house,\" Herlan
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
The head of local neighborhood unit Komari assisted the
\nofficers by gaining entry to the house without raising the
\nsuspicion of Makmuri's wife, who was in the house.<\/p>\n
The moment she opened the door, Herlan rushed to Muklas' room.<\/p>\n
\"Most of his testimony is true. But at that time he did not
\nknow that he had arrested me, Ali Gufron. Later on, when they
\nlearned about my identity they said that they were very lucky
\ncatching a big fish while fishing for a small one,\" Muklas
\ncommented while grinning widely.<\/p>\n
Herlan, who received a special commendation for his role in
\nthe bombing investigation, was one of six witnesses summoned to
\nthe trial on Wednesday. The other witnesses, included Hutomo
\nPamungkas, Amrozi, who refused to testify, and Ali Imron.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/court-hears-account-on-arrest-of-blast-suspect-1447893297",
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