Police arrest another bombing suspect

Jupriadi, The Jakarta Post, Makassar, South Sulawesi

Police investigating last week's bombings of a McDonald's outlet and a car dealership in Makassar, South Sulawesi, arrested another suspect on Tuesday, and continued the hunt for a man believed to be the mastermind of the bombings that killed three people and injured 11 others.

Security personnel arrested Ilham, 22, on Tuesday at his family's home at Makampa village, Bone regency, bringing the number of suspects now detained to four.

Police had already arrested three suspects: Muchtar, Usman and Masnur. Another, Ansar, was killed in the explosion.

With the arrest of Ilham, only one of the six suspects in the Makassar bombings is still at large: Agung Hamid, believed by police investigators to be the mastermind of the bombings.

The arrest of four suspects came just under a week after the bombings, much faster when compared with the Bali terrorist attacks where investigators needed almost a month before they could arrest the suspects.

Police investigators have also declared the suspects to be part of the terrorist network linked to the deadly Bali bombings on Oct. 12, in which over 190 people were killed and some 300 injured.

The swift arrest of suspects in the bombings has earned both praise and questions for the police as they were apparently unable to find the perpetrators of previous bomb attacks across the country, notably the church bombings on Christmas Eve in 2000.

South Sulawesi Police chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani denied on Tuesday an intelligence report that police had prior knowledge of the bombing plans for Makassar and the identity of the bombers but had failed to take preventive measures to foil the incident.

"It's a lie. It was impossible that the police could have known about it beforehand," he said. "Had we known about the suspects before they staged the bombings, we would certainly have arrested them," he stressed.

Meanwhile, Masnur, a key suspect believed to be a bomb maker, denied on Tuesday any involvement in the McDonald's bombing and any link with Laskar Jundullah, a radical group implicated in the incident.

"That's only a police accusation. It's not true," he told The Jakarta Post upon his arrival at 9:45 a.m. at South Sulawesi's Hasanuddin international airport.

The suspect, wearing an eye-glass and a traditional Muslim white cap, was flown to Makassar from Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, by commercial Garuda Citilink plane under tight guard. Shortly after his arrival, he was taken directly to the South Sulawesi Police Headquarters for further interrogation.

Masnur also denied assembling the bomb along with another suspect, Muchtar Daeng Lau, who is believed to have been trained in Afghanistan and the Philippines, and is suspected to be a member of Laskar Jundullah.

"I don't know about that," Masnur said when asked whether he had manufactured the bomb at his Abadi Raya Makassar metal workshop, located on Jl. Jufri No. I.

However, the police have said they found four detonators, 2.5 kilograms of TNT, iron casings for bombs, other raw materials and a manual on how to assemble bombs at the raided workshop.

Asked why he had fled to Kolaka regency, Masnur said, "I'd simply returned home to celebrate Idul Fitri on Tuesday".

Southeast Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Tengku Asikin Husein played down Masnur's denials. "For a suspect it is normal to deny all accusations. But we have obtained strong evidence proving his involvement," he was quoted by Antara as saying in Kendari.

Husein cited the police discovery of the detonators, the bomb- making manual and explosives during the raid on Masnur's workshop.

Husein said police in Southeast Sulawesi had questioned Masnur for six hours on Monday night but he mostly remained silent apart from denying all the accusations.

Masnur, a father of six children, graduated in 1987 from the economics department at the Indonesian Muslim University (UMI) in Makassar.

Police are hunting down Agung Hamid in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu and also in Java.

"He may be hiding in Yogyakarta, Surabaya or another city in Java. We're tracking him down," Firman said. Agung is believed to have at least two wives, including one in Yogyakarta.

Firman said the police had questioned at least 28 witnesses, including Jono, who is suspected of being a member of a radical group waging war in Poso, Central Sulawesi.

Jono sent an SMS message to another witness, Desy, to ask her whether the bomb at McDonald's had already exploded, Firman said without elaborating.