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)