Police await lawyers before tackling Samudra and his four accomplices
Police await lawyers before tackling Samudra and his four accomplices
The Jakarta Post, Denpasar/Jakarta
Police are waiting for defense lawyers to arrive before
interrogating Abdul Aziz alias Imam Samudra, the alleged
mastermind of the deadly Bali bombings, and his four accomplices.
"We will continue the interrogations after their lawyers
arrive in Bali, probably on Monday," chief investigator Insp.
Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika, the man leading the joint
investigation, said on Saturday.
He said that the suspects had to be accompanied by lawyers
during questioning, but stressed that in line with the new
antiterrorism regulation they would not be allowed to hear their
clients' answers to questions posed by police during the
interrogations.
"They will only be able to see their clients but not to hear
them," Pastika said.
Lawyers for another leading suspect, Amrozi, who has been
undergoing questioning in Bali since last month, were only
allowed to watch their client being questioned and were refused
permission to interrupt during the interrogation sessions.
Samudra and his four co-accused -- Amin alias Junaedi, Wahyudi
alias Andri Oktavia, Abdul Rauf, and Agus alias Andi Hidayat --
were flown on a Fokker F-28 plane to Bali from Jakarta under
heavy guard late on Friday.
All are being held separately to prevent them from having any
contact with each other.
Samudra and Amrozi are being detained in the Military Police
post inside the Bali Police Headquarters, which also hosts Rauf
and Amin. Meanwhile, Wahyudi and Agus are being held at Denpasar
Police Headquarters.
Ahead of their arrival, the detention cells earmarked for them
in the Bali Police Headquarters were fitted with a video
surveillance system.
Several mini cameras, implanted high on the ceilings,
continuously feed pictures in real-time mode to various monitors
in the guardroom, intelligence offices, and the offices of a
number of high-ranking police officers.
Pastika said the alleged operations chief of the regional
terror network Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), Mukhlas, and eight other
suspects -- also implicated in the Bali bombings -- would also be
flown to the resort island from Klaten, Central Java, where they
were arrested last Tuesday night.
Pastika, speaking after the arrival of Samudra in Bali,
claimed that the bomb probe had netted at least half of the bomb-
plotters.
He said "at least 90 percent" of the plot had been uncovered
since the Oct. 12 attacks that killed more than 190 people,
mostly foreigners, despite the fact that the police were unable
to identify the sources of the high explosives, such as RDX, used
for the bomb in Bali.
Bomb experts say finding the sources of these high-powered
explosives will be crucial to identifying other suspects outside
Samudra and his accomplices' group.
Pastika said the arrest of Amrozi on Nov. 5 was the most
important breakthrough in the investigation. "Before his arrest,
everything was dark but after we captured Amrozi then we began to
see some light," he was quoted by AFP as saying.
He described Samudra as "a subordinate" of Amrozi's brother,
Mukhlas, in JI, but added that Samudra had "more advanced bomb-
making skills" than Mukhlas.
Samudra, 35, was arrested on Nov. 21 at the Merak ferry port
in Banten province while trying to flee to Sumatra before heading
overseas.
On Friday, Pastika said Samudra would be taken to the scene of
the blast for a reconstruction of the crime should this prove
necessary.
He also disclosed that the devastating bombings, which caused
millions of dollars in losses, cost just US$30,000 to finance,
adding that Mukhlas had admitted accepting the cash in two
installments from a Malaysian called Wan Min.
Pastika said the money was "all spent and gone" and Wan Min
was now being detained in Malaysia. Police are still
investigating who gave the money to the Malaysian.
Meanwhile, Malaysia's Taufik bin Abdullah alias Dani, who is
appealing against a death sentence over his role in the Atrium
Plaza bombing in Central Jakarta 2001, admitted he knew Samudra
and the alleged JI leader, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir.
Ba'asyir is being detained by the National Police in Jakarta
for his alleged role in various bombings, but has yet to be
linked to the Bali blast.
"He (Ba'asyir) is a good man. a good teacher. But I don't know
him well," Dani said on Friday at Jakarta's Salemba prison.
Dani's Indonesian accomplice, Abbas, was also sentenced to
death over the Atrium Plaza blast, in which Samudra also played a
role. The bomb was intended to target Christians holding a
religious gathering at the Aston Hotel adjacent to the plaza,
Abbas said.