Police baffled over bomb source
Tiarma Siboro and Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Denpasar
National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Tuesday that investigators had a difficult time tracing the source of TNT, RDX and PTEN found in the bombs used in the Oct. 12 blast, which killed over 190 people and injured some 300 others.
"After conducting forensic examinations at the blast site, there are other materials that Amrozi did not procure in Surabaya," Da'i said after a special coordination meeting of political and security ministers in Jakarta.
The other materials, he said, included RDX and TNT.
Meanwhile, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said on Tuesday that its team had yet to find any RDX residue as claimed by the National Police.
The head of the AFP contingent in Bali, Graham Aston, said he acknowledged that the Indonesian police had found RDX, but so far the Australian International Forensics team, which was deployed at the blast scene, had yet to find any evidence of the compound.
"So far my forensics people have not found any RDX. But that does not mean that there was no RDX, it just means that we have not found it yet. The Indonesian Police have found it and there's nothing wrong with that because quite often the forensic people find different things. So far we only have chlorate and TNT," said Aston.
RDX is a basic compound found in the C-4 explosive, which is made according to military specifications and produced only in the United States.
Da'i also said on Tuesday that it was impossible for Amrozi, the only suspect of the investigation of the Bali carnage so far, to reenact the making of bombs used in the Bali bombing.
"Amrozi has no capacity to make bombs, making it impossible to ask him to reconstruct the bomb-making process," said Da'i.
Some legislators and politicians, including the chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), Amien Rais, have expressed reservations over the arrest of Amrozi and have demanded that the suspect reconstruct the incident.
In Denpasar, the head of the multinational inquiry team, Insp. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika, said that different findings from the AFP were considered by the police as additional input to make the investigation comprehensive.
He also said that he had not denied nor acknowledged the involvement of foreign secret agents in the incident based on the RDX finding by police.
"We have to be careful as it is a sensitive issue," said Pastika.
Meanwhile, nine more victims were identified on Tuesday, bringing the number of those identified among the dead to 142 of the total 185.
Spokesman for the Bali Bombing Crisis Center Agus Hariyanto told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that the multinational joint identification team had managed to identify another nine severely burned bodies, but another 43 were still not identified.
"Experts at Sanglah Hospital have successfully identified the bodies based on DNA analysis and matching up dental records," said Agus.
Five Australians, an Indonesian, a Briton, a Swede and a Brazilian were among those identified.
Agus said the remaining unidentified bodies would be kept in special storage at the morgue at Sanglah Hospital.
The Bali administration was waiting for the Australian government to approve a mass burial.
Agus said that there had been a special request from Australia not to bury the unidentified bodies until a team from Australia could complete the identification process.
"The Bali administration wants the bodies to be buried immediately, however, the Australians have asked for a delay. We just have to wait for them then," said Agus.
The crisis center has based its total of blast victims on the body count, and have not added the number of those missing.