Police claim to be close to solving Bali bomb puzzle

I Wayan Juniartha and Fitri Wulandari, Denpasar, Bali

With three weeks left for the investigation into the bomb attack in Bali to be completed, the police claim to have built a rough picture of the jigsaw puzzle.

Spokesman for the joint investigative team Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang said on Sunday the police had managed to produce an initial reconstruction of where the bombing was planned and how it was executed following questioning of a prime suspect, Amrozi.

"The reconstruction includes tools used to assemble the bombs, explosive materials, places used to plan the bombing, places used by the perpetrators as a meeting point after the bombing, and the perpetrators involved," Aritonang said.

He said the investigators were closely examining five places where the perpetrators grouped.

He declined to confirm whether the locations were in Indonesia, but said teams had been sent to Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, the places where Amrozi confessed to having visited.

"We hope from a series of foreign trips made by Amrozi we can find facts on his activities related to the Bali bombing," Aritonang said.

A Malaysian federal police official told the Associated Press there were "no developments" in regard to suspicions that Amrozi's accomplices may have fled to Malaysia.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to say whether the Indonesian police had contacted Malaysia or sought any help in arresting the accomplices.

Indonesian police raided several houses in Denpasar and the East Java regency of Lamongan in search of more evidence that linked Amrozi with the bombing. Among the houses was a boarding house in Denpasar where Amrozi and his accomplices are believed to have planned and possibly assembled the bomb.

The investigators have found traces of materials to make the bombs, including high-explosive RDX, in the house. Laboratory tests are being conducted to confirm similarity of the materials with those found at the blast site, Aritonang said.

After over three weeks of investigation that has been marred with wrong arrests, police apprehended Amrozi last Wednesday at his home in Tenggulun, Paciran village, Lamongan. He was allegedly the owner of the Mitsubishi L-300 van used in the bombing.

Later police questioned Muhammad Zakaria, the leader of Al Islam boarding school in Lamongan where Amrozi visited several times, and Silvester Tendean, from whom Amrozi purchased over one ton of chemical substances to make bombs.

The police are hunting down Amrozi's brothers M. Gufron, Ali Imron and Ali Fauzi and Mubarok, a cleric at the Al Islam Islamic boarding school, who the suspect claimed were his accomplices in the bombing. It remains unknown whether the four were part of 10 people sought by the police.

Aritonang said the police were focusing their investigation on Amrozi's role as one of field operators in the bombing which ripped through tourist-packed Sari Club and Paddy's Club in Kuta. At least 190 people were killed, mostly foreigners, and 97 others are still missing and presumed dead.

Amrozi faces capital punishment under the government regulation in lieu of law on antiterrorism issued by the government last month.

Aritonang said the police were preparing another interrogation session with Amrozi for the purpose of his trial. The police have named Made Suryawan, a lawyer at the Mahasaraswati Legal Aid Foundation, to accompany Amrozi during the questioning. Amrozi had refused to appoint a lawyer, according to Aritonang.

Separately, Zakaria told investigators he knew Amrozi's younger brother Ali Imron because he was one of his staff at Al Islam. But, he claimed he did not know any of the other three people who the police say are Amrozi's accomplices.

Zakaria earlier had said he did not know Amrozi well as the latter had spent several years working in Malaysia.

Zakaria also denied that VCDs found in his home during a police search on Saturday were on military training. Without further clarification, he only said that the VCDs were old films about the Muslim's struggle.

Police have so far refused to link Amrozi with Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, the owner of Al Mukmin boarding house in Ngruki, near the Central Java city of Surakarta, who has been arrested for his alleged role in the Christmas bombing in 2000 and the plot to assassinate Megawati Soekarnoputri before she assumed power last year.