Bomb threats rattle two foreign offices
JAKARTA (JP): The Canadian embassy and the office of Singapore Airlines received phoned-in bomb threats in the space of two hours on Tuesday afternoon.
Although the threats turned out to be hoaxes, they were the first to target foreign offices in the wave of terrorization leveled at many properties across the city.
The embassy and airline office are located in office buildings on a few hundred meters apart on Jl. Sudirman, a major city thoroughfare.
A threat was conveyed at about 1 p.m. to the embassy on the fifth floor of 18-story Wisma Metropolitan I, which is part of the trio of buildings in the World Trade center complex.
Singapore Airlines, located on the second floor of 26-floor Chase Plaza, received a threat at 2:30 p.m.
According to the embassy's political counselor Rene Cremonese, a male caller made the threat to receptionist Yulia.
"The caller, speaking in Bahasa Indonesia, simply said that he had placed a bomb in the embassy," Cremonese told The Jakarta Post.
The embassy contacted the National Police's Gegana bomb squad and conveyed the threat to the building's management, PT Jakarta Land, he added.
A group of 10 security guards from the building management inspected the embassy and several other suspect areas in the building, one of the guards said.
Many employees in the building panicked after they heard the arrival of the Gegana squad, heralded by loud sirens, recalled the guard, who asked to remain anonymous.
"But we managed to calm down the people, saying there was no bomb in the building."
He regretted the embassy's decision to report the threat to the bomb squad.
"The security guards here have been trained to handle bombs," he said, without discussing the training or any bomb detection devices at their disposal.
Cremonese said the embassy received a similar bomb hoax two years ago.
Woman voice
The airline scare was different from previous bomb threats because the caller was a woman.
"One of the airline's reservation staff, Sumi, said the woman had a Chinese accent, telling her that she had placed a bomb on the second floor where the airline office is located," the officer, who requested anonymity, said.
After combing part of the floor and the building, Gegana squad officers declared the property safe and that there was no bomb.
Several skyscrapers, shopping centers, private and state offices and even a hospital in the capital have been victims of bomb threats, all subsequently revealed to be hoaxes, in the past three months.
Recent threats included a written message onboard a Garuda Indonesia flight from Bali; a phoned-in threat to state-run Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital; a scare at the city's tallest building, Wisma BNI tower, and a threat made against state-run Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI).
On Monday, similar threats terrified employees at the Bank Dagang Negara (BDN) building on Jl. Samanhudi and privately run Bank SGP's office on Jl. Sudirman, both in Central Jakarta.
On Friday, the Attorney General Office's in South Jakarta received a threat.
Separately, the Central Jakarta police announced on Tuesday the discovery of a "cookie tin" believed to contain explosives at Cipto Mangunkusumo.
According to detective chief Maj. Budiono Sandi, the tin, with a note stating "contains nitrogen", will be examined by the Gegana squad at its laboratory. (jun/emf)