Joint bomb probe team to be set up
Joint bomb probe team to be set up
JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas
Ham) resolved on Tuesday to establish a joint fact-finding team
to identify culprits behind the Christmas Eve bomb explosions,
which claimed 18 lives and injured dozens of others.
The commission's chairman, Djoko Soegianto, said the
organization would soon ask President Abdurrahman Wahid to issue
a presidential decree endorsing the establishment of the joint
team, which will include representatives from the government, the
commission and the general community, including members of the
Indonesian Forum for Peace (FID).
FID is a voluntary council set up by political, legal and
social activists soon after the incidents, in an effort to assist
the government identify the mastermind behind the bombings, which
occurred at churches in seven provinces.
Djoko said the government had not yet responded to the
initiative, which would involve the government-sanctioned
investigation team, led by National Police chief Gen. Surojo
Bimantoro, and FID.
"Such a joint investigation team is needed to effectively and
credibly reveal the truth behind the incidents," he told a media
conference following the commission's plenary meeting on Tuesday
afternoon.
"The criminal aspects of the case will be handled by the
police, while the commission will handle the human rights issues
once we uncover the motive behind these (bombing incidents),"
Djoko added.
He said the commission discovered that people still doubted
the police's seriousness in handling such bombing cases, an
attitude inherited as a result of similar incidents in the past
which still remain unsolved.
The people demand that the perpetrators be prosecuted and
several institutions, including the intelligence agencies, be
restructured so that such incidents will not happen again in the
future, Djoko said.
In a separate development, a hand grenade was found planted in
front of a rental tour bus company, PT Bunga Tanjung, on Jl.
Teuku Umar on Batam island, Riau, in the early hours of Tuesday.
A correspondent for a Jakarta-based daily said that he
witnessed Barelang police patrolling the area take the grenade
and two pedestrians who discovered the grenade to police
headquarters. An employee of PT Bunga Tanjung also confirmed the
incident.
Barelang police detectives chief Adj. Comr. Bahagia Dachi,
however, denied the incident.
"It (the finding of the grenade) is a rumor. Nothing has
happened," he said. (26/bby)