E. Java Police won't release detained hardliners

E. Java Police won't release detained hardliners

Ainur R. Sophiaan, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya

East Java Provincial Police on Tuesday rejected the Indonesian
Council of Ulemas (MUI)'s request for the release of 102
hardliners being detained for a violent raid on gambling dens in
Ngawi.

East Java Police Chief Insp. Gen. Sutanto said the members of
the militant Laskar Jihad group cannot be released right now
because investigations are still underway.

"It's impossible to accept the (MUI's) request," he said, "so
the probe will continue."

Last Saturday, MUI Secretary General Din Syamsuddin visited
the detainees at police cells in the East Java capital of
Surabaya, and appealed to the police to release them soon, or at
least suspend their probe until after Idul Fitri holidays.

The country's top Islamic authority had earlier wrote to the
National Police headquarters to express the same demand.

Sutanto said he has prohibited police investigators from
taking leave during Idul Fitri in an effort to speed up the
inquiry.

The extremists, mostly coming from the Central Java cities of
Yogyakarta and Surakarta, later reportedly kidnapped Yuwono
Sustyo, who chaired the Ngawi chapter of the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan).

Secretary of East Java's police chief detective Adj. Com.
Didik Totok Prijandono said on Tuesday that a special team has
been assigned to trace the whereabouts of Yuwono, who was among
those at one of the raided gambling dens.

Yuwono was rumored to have been killed, since he was kidnapped
from his house. However, Didik said the police were verifying the
report.

In Yogyakarta, Laskar Jihad Commander Ja'far Umar Tholib on
Monday night denied the accusations that his group was behind
Yuwono's abduction. "We are not a group of kidnappers or
troublemakers," he said.

Ja'far's denial contradicted an earlier statement by his
group's lawyer, M. Mahendradatta, that his clients had handed
over Yuwono to police.

"Mahendradatta's statement was issued when the situation was
still uncertain," Ja'far said. "He thought that Yuwono Susatyo
was one of the six gamblers we handed over to the police on Nov.
29."

Meanwhile, former president Abdurrahman Wahid criticized the
police on Monday for taking what he called discriminatory action
by arresting only members of the Laskar Jihad over the Ngawi
incident.

The police should have also captured all parties involved in
the riot, including PDI Perjuangan supporters who were seen at
gambling centers, he added.