Police blamed for intelligence failures

Police blamed for intelligence failures

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post

Public enemy No. 1 and bombing fugitive Azahari bin Husin had
worked undetected in a building near the Australian Embassy to
plan the Sept. 9 attack, a top police officer said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a round table seminar on police intelligence,
National Police detective chief Comr. Gen. Suyitno Landung said
that police investigations had found the Malaysian bomb expert
had been working for a company in the area as part of his plot to
attack the embassy.

Azahari, who was already on the police wanted list at the
time, was working in the building after the Bali bombings but
before the JW Marriott Hotel attack in 2003.

However, Suyitno would not reveal exactly when Azahari started
work at the company. He also declined to identify the company.

Police Watch chairman Rashid Lubis blamed the police's
intelligence failure on its overconfidence following its
separation from the military in 2000.

"The police should have obtained this information before the
Embassy bombing," Rashid said.

Their inability to capture Malaysian fugitives Azahari and
Noordin Moh. Top after more than two years of hunting was partly
attributable to the poor performance of the police intelligence
unit, he said.

"After the separation, there has been less communication and
coordination between the intelligence units in the police and the
military," Rashid said.

Azahari and Noordin have been top on the list of the police's
most-wanted since the Bali bombings that claimed 202 lives on
Oct. 12, 2002. The search for the two Malaysian bomb-makers
intensified after the JW Marriott Hotel blast in Jakarta last
year.

The police were on their tail, narrowly missing them in house
searches in Bandung earlier this year but investigations after
the Australian Embassy blast indicated both were still active.
The attack came just after the police antiterror unit had sought
help from a convicted Bali bomber in their efforts to locate the
pair.

The police have put up a Rp 1 billion (US$111,111) reward for
information that leads to the capture of either man.

Police had earlier found that Azahari had been regularly
visiting Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta to give
lectures in physics between 1998 and 2000.

"He was entitled to give lecture in UGM because he graduated
from a top university in England, majoring in physics," Suyitno
said.

Rashid suggested that the police boost cooperation with the
military intelligence to trace materials used to make bombs that
exploded outside the Australian Embassy.

"Basically, it is a matter of lack of coordination and
cooperation between state intelligence agencies," Rashid said.

He also called on the police to improve internal communication
to avoid unnecessary mistakes as happened when a police officer
later realized he had mistakenly stopped and let free Azahari for
traffic violations the afternoon after the morning attack.

On top of these problems, the police lacked quality human
resources and technology to capture the suspects, Rashid said.

"Military intelligence received better education and operate
better equipment than the police intelligence," Rashid said.