Imam Samudra's lawyers convinced 'something fell from sky'
Imam Samudra's lawyers convinced 'something fell from sky'
I Wayan Juniartha, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar, Bali
A lawyer representing Imam Samudra, who is being detained by
police for his alleged role in planning the Oct. 12 Legian
bombings, has expressed skepticism over their client's ability to
assemble the explosives, saying the police should have the
suspect re-enact his role in the events leading up to the
powerful bombing.
The lawyer also alleged that Imam Samudra and the other
suspects had been manipulated by a "third party", which wanted to
force the nation to accept its own political agenda regarding the
existence of terrorist networks and the discrediting of Islam in
Indonesia.
"Our concern particularly lies in the fact that the suspects
have confessed to acquiring materials and assembling the
explosives. But these are materials that would be used for a
conventional bomb while media reports and experts have described
the bomb that exploded in front of the Sari Club in Kuta as a
high-tech device of great power," Achmad Mihdan of the Muslim
Lawyers' Team (TPM) told The Jakarta Post here on Tuesday.
According to Achmad, the only way to reassure himself and his
colleagues, the public and law enforcers themselves would be for
the police to have the suspect re-enact his role in the bombing.
Imam Samudra, whose real name is Abdul Azis, has admitted to
planning the bombing of Paddy's and the Sari Club in Kuta, as
well as assembling the bombs.
"We remain skeptical that the explosives our client claimed he
assembled could have produced a blast as powerful as one
resulting from a bomb made from RDX, for example," Mihdan said.
Mihdan, accompanied by four other TPM lawyers -- Qadhar
Faisal, Made Rachman Marasabessy, Nasrun Kalianda and Andi Windu
-- was speaking after their arrival here on Tuesday. The lawyers
also paid a visit on Insp. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika, who heads
the police team investigating the Bali blasts.
"There is also a possibility that the bomb in Kuta was made of
two separate types of explosives, conventional and hi-tech ones.
The suspects are supposed to take responsibility for the
conventional one while the hi-tech was, somehow, implanted by
those who manipulated our clients. And our clients might know
nothing about this manipulation. The police should also take this
possibility into consideration," he said.
"There is an eyewitness who saw something fall from the sky
right before the explosion," he added.
When asked about the alleged manipulation, Pastika simply
asked: "Do you think it makes any sense?"
He said all the investigators were expected to return to
Denpasar on Tuesday to start preparing the draft case files in
consultation with state prosecutors.
"We will stage a reconstruction of the events before
prosecutors and experts," he said without elaborating.
He said the lawyers should know better than to tell the police
how to do their jobs.
Inquiry team spokesman Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang said that
the police would warmly welcome any additional information or
versions of events, but would continue to carry out the
investigation professionally.
"But we need to verify the information or whatever versions of
events are suggested first by forensic and scientific crime
investigation. Without concrete evidence, we cannot incorporate
such information into our investigation," he said.
However, the police still have many questions to be answered
to avoid the possibility of the case against Samudra being thrown
out of court.
So far, they have yet to obtain strong physical evidence
either from the suspects or the blast sites, and have still to
determine which of the suspects should be charged with causing
the blasts in Paddy's, the Sari Club and Renon respectively. They
also have yet to arrest five other suspects, including Dulmatin
who, according to Amrozi's confession, was responsible for
detonating the bombs in Paddy's and the Sari Club.