Blast rocks Attorney General's Office
JAKARTA (JP): An explosive devise exploded in a building in the Attorney General's Office compound in South Jakarta on Tuesday evening, causing minor damage but no casualties.
The blast came just an hour after prosecutors questioned former president Soeharto's youngest son Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra in connection with his father's alleged involvement in graft.
South Jakarta Police chief Sr. Supt. Edward Aritonang said the police were examining the explosive and questioning three witnesses, two of whom were taken to the police station for further interrogation.
"We cannot tell you what caused the blast based on brief observation. The fact is it came from the men's bathroom on the ground floor," Aritonang told reporters at the scene of incident, located about 100 meters from Attorney General Marzuki Darusman's office.
Marzuki was in the compound when the incident took place at about 6 p.m. but soon left his office for a function at the United States Embassy to celebrate the country's Independence Day.
Later, he said it was too early to speculate on the possibility of a political motive behind the blast.
"However, I think it is necessary for extra security measures in the compound," Marzuki told The Jakarta Post.
The explosion ruined the ground floor's bathroom, the glass door next to it and the windows of the bathroom on the second and third floors. It also shattered a part of the building's wall.
Some state prosecutors were in a meeting on the fifth floor at the time, evaluating the trial of one defendant in the Bank Bali case, Djoko S. Tjandra.
Rudi, a driver of provincial prosecutor Nurdin Rachman, said he saw a man running through the shattered glass door toward the main entrance of the building a moment after the blast rocked the compound.
The man, later identified as Beni, claimed he was a driver of PT Bahana and was urinating when a bang coming from the ceiling startled him. A piece of the ceiling landed on his head before he managed to run out.
"My clothes are all wet and my head is bruised," Beni, who drove a white Peugeot with license number B 3 AE, told the media minutes before the police arrived and took him and Rudi away for questioning.
Juan Felix Tampubolon, who heads the Soeharto family's team of lawyers, said Soeharto would face questioning on Thursday, further "torture" for his 79-year-old client who he claims suffered permanent brain damage after a mild stroke.
A shooting incident marked Tommy's questioning by House of Representatives legislators in May. (bby)