Police cast net for four bombing suspects
JAKARTA (JP): Jakarta Police are tracking down four primary suspects in connection with four different bomb blasts here last year.
Jakarta Police chief of detectives Sr. Comr. Harry Montolalu said on Friday that police were looking into the possibility that at least two of the four bombing suspects were connected with more than one of the blasts.
Harry identified the four separate cases as: the bomb explosion at the Attorney General's Office (AGO) building on July 5; the powerful bomb blast in front of the residence of Philippine Ambassador, Leonides T. Caday, in Central Jakarta, on Aug. 1; the bombing at the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) building on Sept. 13; and the blast at Omni Batavia Hotel in West Jakarta on Nov. 17.
"The suspect in the Philippine bomb case, Said Adnan, is also believed to be involved in the AGO bombing case... there is a strong link between the two cases," Harry announced to reporters on Friday, following a formal meeting of police detectives across the nation at the National Police Headquarters.
"The police also have evidence that the bomb blasts in Jakarta are linked to some of the bombing cases in Medan, West Nusa Tenggara and Palu... this has been found out via calls made from mobile phones of suspects... ," Harry said.
"This could lead to a big ring of bombers operating a network."
Harry added that in the case of the Omni Batavia blast, police have identified a suspect who was a hotel guest on the day of the blast, but had not been registered in the hotel's registry logbook.
"We find this very suspicious... the hotel had very few guests, less than 15 on that day. So how come this hotel guest was not listed in the logbook?" Harry said.
The blasts at the Attorney General's Office building and the Omni Batavia Hotel claimed no lives, unlike the powerful blast in front of the residence of Philippine Ambassador, Leonides T. Caday, in Central Jakarta, which killed two people.
The bombing at the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) building claimed at least 10 lives.
Following Friday's meeting of police detectives, National Police deputy chief of detectives, Brig. Gen. Ail Sudirman, said that police had forwarded over 60 dossiers of suspects involved in numerous bombing cases across the nation in the past 18 months, including the Christmas Eve nationwide bombings which killed at least 19 people.
Ail said that the police have found some interesting evidence in these cases as well as the recent case concerning grenades found in Depok.
As reported earlier, Depok Police arrested five men for the alleged possession of hand grenades and hundreds of bullets seized from different locations across Greater Jakarta on Tuesday and Wednesday.
National Police Chief Gen. Surojo Bimantoro said on Friday that he had instructed the Greater Jakarta Police to conduct routine "sweeps and raids" for firearms and explosives in certain areas of Greater Jakarta suspected of sheltering firearms and explosives dealers.
In connection with the Depok incident, city military commander Maj. Gen. Bibit Waluyo dismissed on Friday all allegations that military officers were involved in providing bullets or grenades to the explosive-dealing suspects.
Bibit said that not a single grenade or bullet had gone missing from the city military command. (ylt)