Bali bombing suspects to reconstruct crime

Bali bombing suspects to reconstruct crime

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

The police will fly suspects of the Bali blast from the resort
island to Central Java to have them reconstruct the meetings they
allegedly held to plan the attacks.

The spokesman for the joint investigative team, Brig. Gen.
Edward Aritonang, said here on Friday that the reconstruction was
aimed at convincing the police about the suspects' planning of
the attack and with whom they made the plans.

"We want to make sure as to whether the suspects actually held
meetings to plan the attack, who attended the meetings and who
launched the attack according to the plans," he said, adding that
the suspects may be flown to Surakarta, Central Java, aboard a
charter flight.

He added further that after the reconstruction in Surakarta,
the suspects would be taken to Lamongan, East Java, to
reconstruct the amassing of chemicals confiscated from the homes
of Amrozi's business partner, who was arrested in Malaysia.

Qadhar Faisal, a lawyer for the suspects, said the charter
aircraft was to depart Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m. for the
Central Java town.

Among the seven suspects to be flown out are Imam Samudra,
controller of the attack, Amrozi and his older brother Mukhlas
alias Ali Gufron. The police have yet to determine which one of
the suspects are to be held responsible for each of the blasts at
Paddy's Cafe, the Sari Club and Renon.

Samudra, whose real name is Abdul Azis, has confessed to being
the controller of the attack. He was arrested in Merak, Banten,
on his way to Pekanbaru, Riau, on Nov. 21, and the police have
examined his notebook computer seized from a house he had rented
in Serang. Samudra has also said the blasts were detonated by
Dulmatin, who is still at large.

Amrozi, another key suspect in the blasts, admitted to having
purchased chemicals for the explosives in Surabaya and then
transporting them to Denpasar. He was arrested in his home town
in Lamongan, East Java, in November. Samudra and Amrozi knew one
another.

Mukhlas was arrested along with other members of the Solo
Group on Dec. 5 in Klaten, near Surakarta. The operations chief
of Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) in Southeast Asia confessed to handing
over a sum of US$30,000, which he had received from Malaysian Man
Win, to Samudra to finance the attack.

In Jakarta, Chief investigator Insp. Gen. I Made Mangku
Pastika said on Friday that the reconstructions were needed to
find out more about the individual roles of the suspects in the
blasts at Paddy's Cafe and the Sari Club in Kuta.

Almost simultaneously, another bomb also exploded near the
office of the honorary U.S. consul in the suburb of Renon in
Denpasar.

"The reconstruction will be held sometime within the next week
in three cities, including Lamongan and Solo in Central Java, as
well as in Bali," Pastika said.

Pastika, nevertheless, refused to disclose whether Imam
Samudra and Amrozi were among those key suspects that would take
part in the reconstructions.

The police has also disclosed the contents of the so-called
Solo Documents, which detailed terrorist activities as well as
their extensive organization with a clear chain of command among
members, including the delegation of tasks in the field during a
terrorist operation.

Based on the documents, Samudra acts as the commander, while
underneath him is an additional member tasked with chemical
substance provisions. It is believed that Amrozi held this
position.

"Even though the documents referred to JI, we (the police)
have yet to figure out whether Ba'asyir was connected to the Bali
bombing," Pastika said, referring to Muslim cleric Abu Bakar
Ba'asyir, chairman of the Yogyakarta-based Indonesian Mujahidin
Council (MMI), and also the co-founder of JI.

Police have said that the Bali blasts that killed almost 200
people, mostly Australian, and injured more than 320 others, were
part of a vast terrorist operation spanning the last three years.

Several suspects, including Samudra, have admitted to their
involvement in the blasts at the Atrium Plaza, Jakarta, in 2000,
and at several churches in Batam and Pekanbaru on Christmas Eve
2001.