Ali, Mubarok transferred to Bali
Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali
The police transferred Ali Imron, Mubarok and 13 other suspects in the Oct. 12, 2003, Bali blasts to Bali on Thursday for further interrogation.
The 15 suspects flew in on a chartered Merpati Fokker 28 airplane and arrived here at 8:55 p.m. local time.
Upon their arrival at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Kuta, Ali Imron alias Ale and Mubarok, whose real name is Hutomo Pamungkas, were directly escorted to the bomb site in the Legian area to undergo a field interrogation while the remaining 13 suspects were brought to Bali Police Headquarters in the city.
The 13 suspects were Sirojul Munir, Firmansyah, Mujarot, Amin Sukastopo, Sofyan, Ilham alias Dodi, Hamzah Baya alias Soleh, Yunus, Puriyanto alias Pak De, Imam Santoso, Abdul Salam, Sulastopo bin Kartowiharjo and Muhajir.
The field interrogation was conducted after the two underwent several interrogations following their arrest in East Kalimantan on Monday. All the suspects were arrested when they were hiding in a hut on Tanjung Berukang Island off Samarinda, capital of East Kalimantan, on their way to escape to East Malaysia.
Ali, who was declared a suspect for hiding numerous weapons and ammunition, has confessed to interrogators that he brought the explosives used for the blasts inside a L-300 pickup to Denpasar. He also has bomb-making skills. Mubarok was suspected of channeling funds to the other suspects as he was a treasurer in Jamaah Islamiyah.
The deputy chief of the joint investigative team, Brig. Gen Edy Danardi, said here on Thursday that the two main suspects, Ali Imron and Mubarok, would be interrogated directly in Legian in order to confirm their positions during the bomb blasts that claimed almost 200 lives.
He said the team had Ali Imron reconstruct how and where he put the bombs. The police also took him to other places including his rented rooms on Jl. Gatot Subroto I and Jalan Malboro in the city.
Earlier reports said Ali assembled the bombs in his rented rooms a few days before the tragedy.
Edy said further the police would comprehensively question the two suspects in order to find a series of important clues that would lead to the final conclusions in the case.
Meanwhile, under heavy police guard, the other 13 suspects were directly sent to Bali Police Headquarters to undergo medical tests and a series of interrogations.
So far, the police have arrested 30 suspects in Denpasar, and East and Central Java. They are still hunting nine others who were believed to still be in Indonesia.
Three more suspects were arrested in Lamongan, Ali's hometown in East Java, for the illegal possession of weapons, bullets and chemical materials after the police questioned Ali Imron.
Ali is a younger brother of Amrozi and Mukhlas, the two main suspects in the blasts.
A National Police spokesman meanwhile said the death toll from the Bali bombing last October had risen to 193, although five of the victims remain unidentified.
Sr. Comr. Zaenuri Lubis said as quoted by DPA that the National Police forensic team, assisted by the Australian Federal Police and the Denpasar-based Sanglah General Hospital, had been able to positively identify only 188 of the victims of the two bomb blasts that tore through the Sari Club and Paddy's pub on the night of Oct. 12, killing mostly Western tourists.
Five other bodies remain unidentified, along with some 140 body parts that have been kept at Bali's Sanglah General Hospital.
Another 350 people were injured in the attack, dubbed the biggest since the terrorist attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.