Bali suspect's case file `still lacking'

Bali suspect's case file `still lacking'

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With the police about to submit the case file on one of the
alleged Bali bombers to prosecutors today, analysts say that
while the evidence against the suspected bombers is strong, it is
not sufficient to prove their links to an international terror
network.

The police plan to submit the case file on Amrozi, one of the
principal suspects in the deadly Bali bombing that killed over
190 people, mostly foreign tourists, and injured more than 300
others.

The police have detained 15 suspects so far for involvement in
the Oct. 12 bombings. Eleven other suspects are still at large.

State prosecutors will accept the files for registration with
court officials in Denpasar, Bali. It normally takes between four
and six weeks for a case to come to trial after it has been
listed with the court. Officials expect the trials to start in
February.

Given the amount of evidence collected during the three-month
investigation, analysts said on Sunday that they were certain the
trials would lead to convictions.

"They (police) have confessions, material evidence, and there
is a logical connection between the suspects' statements and the
facts as found in the field," said Hamid Awaluddin, a legal
expert from Surabaya's Airlangga University.

The breakthrough in the investigation came with the arrest of
Amrozi in November last year. He owned the minivan that was used
to detonate the bomb and admitted to having bought explosive
materials which he took to Bali in the minivan.

Amrozi's confession led to the arrest of 14 other suspects,
including Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra. The police believe that
it was Samudra who masterminded the bombing.

The speedy progress in the resolution of the case -- the work
of a joint investigative team involving local police and the
Australian Federal Police (AFP) -- has drawn praise from many
quarters both at home and abroad.

Lawyer Franz Winarta said the case files would be strong
enough to convict the suspects. But, he added that the
investigation had failed to uncover evidence showing that an
international terrorist network was behind the bombings.

Government officials and terrorist experts suspect the bombing
to have been the work of Jamaah Islamyiah (JI) -- a regional
underground organization that reportedly has bases in Singapore
and Malaysia. JI reportedly aims to create a Southeast Asian
Islamic state and is said to have ties to the Al-Qaeda terrorist
network.

Documents on JI were found in a number of suspects' homes but
the only link to the organization is Amrozi's brother, Ali
Ghufron alias Mukhlas.

He is one of the four key suspects who have been arrested, and
is allegedly a senior JI operative in Indonesia.

The only other sign of an international terrorist network has
been the naming of two Malaysian suspects who are still at large.

Franz said the investigation did not come close to uncovering
what he suspected was "another layer" of foreign suspects behind
the bombing. "There appears to be a missing link, as if it has
been deliberately cut out to hide the real masterminds," he said.

And in what could undermine the prosecution case, some critics
point to the police's inability to name the exact explosive
materials or the type of bomb used in Bali.

Amrozi purchased some of the materials in a chemicals shop in
Surabaya but investigators have yet to explain the traces of RDX
they found at the bomb site. RDX is mainly used by the military.

And although Samudra is the alleged mastermind, he claimed to
have used TNT and denies all knowledge of the RDX.

The absence of lawyers during the police's interrogation of
the suspect may also raise questions even though this is allowed
under the new antiterrorist legislation.

"In cases where the government is under pressure to
demonstrate quick results, evidence is often acquired by
questionable means," said criminal law expert Topo Santoso of the
University of Indonesia.

He said that during the trial the bomb suspects could retract
the confessions they had made earlier to the police. This would
made conviction difficult as the court would then only be able to
admit the statements made during the trial as evidence, he
explained.