2 RI generals possible suspects in Bali probe

Tiarma Siboro and I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali

The tedious investigation into the bomb attack on Bali has resulted in another bizarre twist following reports that linked the blast with two generals, one from the military and one from the police, who mysteriously visited the island on the day of the carnage and left the next day.

An intelligence source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, disclosed that the two generals arrived on Saturday morning Oct. 12 before the bombs were detonated in front of two popular nightclubs close to midnight and left the province the day after.

The source, however, refused to go into detail about the generals' activities during their short visit.

The police's joint inquiry team did not deny or confirm the reports, saying they did not yet have enough information about the presence of a retired three-star police general and one active three-star Army general on the island for reasons which remained unclear prior to the explosion that claimed nearly 200 lives, mostly foreigners.

"I don't have any information on that. I cannot tell you more about this topic because I don't want to go into sensitive areas about parts of the ongoing investigation," the team's spokesperson Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang said.

But Aritonang confirmed that the team had asked several airlines for copies of the passenger manifests for all flights deemed relevant to the investigation.

"There were thousands of people on this island when the explosion took place, so we should not focus only on these two people (generals)," Aritonang said.

Speculation has also been rife about the presence of a former East Timor militia commander on the island at about the same time as the generals.

Aritonang also disclosed that the investigators were still trying to identify the owner of the Mitsubishi L-300 minivan, which was nearly demolished by the explosion. An unspecified amount of bomb residue was found on the vehicle's wheel axle, which investigators believe could be the car used for the bombing.

A team of experts from Mitsubishi are currently assisting the investigators in tracing down the owner of the minivan.

"There were several indications that whoever used the vehicle had deliberately scratched out the identification numbers on the van's engine and chassis," Aritonang said.

The team members have also investigated another vehicle, a Toyota Kijang minivan, which was believed to play some part in the bombing. They claimed to have identified and found the owner of the minivan, but were still pursuing the driver.

Without disclosing any specific details, Aritonang revealed that the investigators had searched several houses, hotel rooms and car dealerships in and around Denpasar. Those places were believed to have a connection with several items found at the crime scene, as well as to the movement of the bombers prior to and after the explosion.

"The owners of those places were very cooperative with our investigation. They have provided us with some good information," Aritonang said.

The investigators, Aritonang added, were trying to determine whether the presence of certain vehicles and people at the blast site were purely coincidental, or were directly connected to the perpetrators.

"I cannot be more specific than that. All I can say is that the evidence would be residue, DNA traces and fingerprints," he said.

In a separate investigation being conducted by Bali police officers into 10 Pakistanis, Aritonang said so far no connection was found between the foreigners and the three composite sketches of suspects created by the investigators.

Aritonang maintained that as yet the investigators had not found any link or connection between the bombing and the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) group, recently labeled a terrorist group operating in Indonesia, by the UN and others.