Police identify five more Bali blast victims<\/p>\n
A'an Suryana and Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
The multinational team investigating the Bali terror bombs
\nidentified on Tuesday five more victims from the Oct. 12 blasts,
\nleaving 17 more bodies unidentified and some 200 missing persons.<\/p>\n
Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang, spokesman for the inquiry team,
\nrevealed that the five victims were I Made Martana, a 35-year-old
\nIndonesian man, Jonathan Simandjuntak, a 27-year-old Indonesian
\nman; Andrea Hore, a 38-year-old Australian woman; Michael Don
\nPascal, a 23-year-old Swiss male and Justin Graeme, a 31-year-old
\nAustralian man.<\/p>\n
\"The police are still conducting DNA tests to identify the 17
\nother bodies,\" said Aritonang in a press conference in his
\noffice.<\/p>\n
The DNA identification process is for those bodies that were
\ncharred beyond recognition.<\/p>\n
Before matching the DNAs with their relatives's ones, the
\npolice investigators also sought information on the victims from
\ntheir belongings and witnesses to strengthen the test's results.<\/p>\n
Asked about the body of one Iqbal, who according to main
\nsuspect Imam Samudra, set off a suicide bomb, Aritonang said that
\nhis body might be among the remaining 17 bodies which were still
\nbeing examined.<\/p>\n
He, however, acknowledged that the police were facing
\ndifficulties in identifying Iqbal because besides the remaining
\n17 bodies, there were still a great number of body parts which
\nstill have to be identified.<\/p>\n
It was not clear when the team would begin a serious
\ninvestigation between the discrepancy of the identified and
\nunidentified bodies and the 200 or so people who were still
\nreportedly missing. Some of those may still be on holiday in
\nother parts of the archipelago<\/p>\n
The police put the death toll to 185 while volunteers and
\nsocial workers said previously that they have received reports on
\nmore than 200 who were killed in the incident because they did
\nnot returned home.<\/p>\n
Currently, medical faculty at the Airlangga University has
\nbeen relatives of Iqbal's in an attempt to match DNA samples and
\nidentify.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Vice President Hamzah Haz expressed his
\nappreciation of the fine police work and the progress they had
\nmade.<\/p>\n
However, he reiterated that the police should carry out the
\ninvestigation thoroughly to find out if there were others behind
\nSamudra.<\/p>\n
Hamzah, who has aligned himself with fundamentalist Muslims in
\nthe country, seemed to cast doubt on earlier findings by
\nsuggesting that the police focus their investigation on finding
\nout whether the bomb blasts were connected to alleged terrorist
\nnetwork Al-Qaeda, or the outlawed Jamaah Islamiyah.<\/p>\n
The police have previously mentioned that there were links to
\nboth of the terror networks.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/police-identify-five-more-bali-blast-victims-1447893297",
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