Pastika named `Time' Newsmaker of the Year

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Insp. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika who is heading the investigation into the Bali bombing was named Time's Asian Newsmaker of the Year for his outstanding performance in finding the alleged perpetuators behind the bombing, the magazine said on Sunday.

Pastika edged Pakistan's General Musharraf and his uneasy alliance with the U.S. war on terror, and the two men behind China's history leadership change, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jianto, said Time's executive editor Anthony Speath.

The Balinese born police officer surged to the front page of major newspapers with his investigation into the Oct. 12 Bali bombing, the world's biggest terrorist strike since last year's Sept 11. strike in America.

"Bali was the news of the year .....we wouldn't have a face to put to it had it not been for Pastika," Speath told The Jakarta Post.

Pastika leads a joint team of Indonesian and Australian investigators whose work has led to the arrest of 15 suspects in connection with the bombing.

"In the course of solving the crime, his team uncovered a frightening terrorist conspiracy with links to al-Qadea, extending throughout Southeast Asia...," Time said in a press statement.

"Third World (developing countries) cops are reputed to be corrupt, lazy and inefficient. From the start pundits expected that the big break -- if there would be any -- would come from Western intelligence agencies. Pastika proved them all wrong," the magazine writes in its "Persons of the Year" double issue which hits newsstands for two weeks starting this Monday.

Pastika's reputation in the police rose when he worked with the United Nations during Indonesia's exit from East Timor in 1999.

He was later stationed in Papua where his investigations helped uncover military involvement in the assassination of local separatist leader, Theys Hiyo Eluay.