'Bali nightclubs not original bomb targets'

'Bali nightclubs not original bomb targets'

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

A suspect in the Oct. 12 Bali bombing has revealed the
intervention of three mysterious strangers who led to a last-
minute change to the targets to be attacked.

During interrogation on Friday last week, Amrozi, one of the
suspects detained, told police detectives that the alleged
mastermind behind the bombings, Imam Samudra, had referred to the
three men during the final preparations for the attacks, which
claimed over 190 lives, mostly foreigners, and left hundreds of
others injured.

According to the interrogation report, which was shown to The
Jakarta Post, Amrozi said the attack was initially planned for
the United States honorary consulate in the Renon area of
Denpasar.

Amrozi only realized that two other bombs had gone off inside
the Paddy's Cafe and in front of the Sari Club on Jl. Legian in
the packed tourist resort area of Kuta when he saw the report on
television at his home in the East Java town of Lamongan.

The bomb that exploded near the U.S. honorary consulate
claimed no fatalities. Police said Amrozi hated Americans as a
result of U.S. policy on Palestine and Iraq.

Amrozi told the detectives that he had never been introduced
to nor seen the three strangers, and that he was involved in a
quarrel with Imam on Oct. 8 over their involvement in the plot.

Amrozi found out about the intervention of the other men when
Imam told him that further instructions on the bomb plot would be
discussed with other parties whose identities Amrozi did not need
to know.

The three mystery men were not part of the team involved in
the initial discussions on the bomb plan, which took place in a
number of towns in Central and East Java.

Amrozi was arrested on Nov. 5 in his hometown of Lamongan and
was sent to Denpasar, where the team investigating the bomb
attacks is based.

Amrozi claimed to be in the dark about the whereabouts of the
three strangers.

When asked for confirmation on Thursday, the joint
investigative team's leader, Insp. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika,
neither denied nor confirmed the existence of the interrogation
report.

"I don't know. I haven't read the report yet," said Pastika.

Police have said Amrozi was a field operative and not the
assembler of the bombs used in the attacks in Bali.

Following the arrest of Amrozi, the police released composite
sketches and a photograph of six suspects.

Pastika admitted on Thursday the involvement of three suspects
other than Amrozi and the six suspects whose identities were made
public recently.

"I said before, there are between six and 10 suspects. Thus
far, we have only managed to identify seven suspects. We still
don't know the whereabouts of the remaining three suspects," said
Pastika.