Pastika named `Time' Newsmaker of the Year

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.