Police nab 2 suspects in Poso bomb blast

Police nab 2 suspects in Poso bomb blast

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Makassar

Less than a week after a deadly bomb blew up inside a public
transportation minivan in the troubled Central Sulawesi regency
of Poso, police arrested two men on Friday for their alleged role
in the attack.

Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Aryanto Sutadi said
the police were still hunting another person suspected of
involvement in the latest violence to rock the town since a peace
agreement put an end to two years of sectarian disturbances in
December 2001.

Aryanto, himself a former antiterrorist officer, said the two
men offered no resistance when the police apprehended them at
their homes in Gerbangrejo subdistrict, Poso Kota district.

"Their initials are N, aged 26, and K, aged 24. Another
suspect, I, was not at home when we searched his place," Aryanto
said as quoted by Antara.

He added that the third suspect was believed to still be in
the town.

A bomb exploded in the minivan near Pasar Sentral market on
Saturday last week, killing six people and injuring a number of
others. The blast came less than two weeks after a minibus driver
was shot dead and a Christian village chief was beheaded.

Aryanto said the arrests were made after investigators
examined the blast site and quizzed several witnesses in the
area, who led the police to a number of suspects.

"We made the arrests after getting descriptions of the
perpetrators and matching these with our files on suspected
persons. We are now interrogating the suspects," he said.

However, Aryanto refused to disclose the role played by each
suspect or the motive behind the bombing, saying there were
currently "many interests" in the area.

One of these, he said, concerned the election of the Poso
regent, which had sparked tension in the area.

"All of the victims of the bombing were ordinary people and
they had nothing to do with any criminal cases. These terrorists
don't care who the victims are. They were trying to provoke their
opponents to act," said Aryanto.

National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said after visiting
Poso a few days ago that the perpetrators of the bombing would be
charged under the antiterrorism law and could face the death
penalty.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who brokered the 2001 peace deal,
rejected the possibility that the blast was related to the
sectarian conflict that he had helped end.

"There is no longer any sectarian conflict in Poso. What
happened were acts of terror perpetrated by one or two people or
groups of people," Kalla said on the sidelines of post-fasting
get-together at his private residence in Makassar on Friday.

He acknowledged, however, that some people who had been
involved in the bloody conflict would stop at nothing to get
revenge.

Kalla also reacted strongly to the National Commission on
Human Rights' finding that violence in the area was continuing
because of the absence of effective law enforcement there.

"How can they conclude that law enforcement is not working
while the police are still hunting down the terrorists? It's true
that there are still many weapons in the hands of the rival
parties in the conflict a few years ago. But, it must be
remembered that finding these firearms is difficult as the police
cannot control all of this vast territory," Kalla said.

The rights body delegates visited Poso for a fact-finding
mission following a string of violent incidents that have shaken
the town over the past three weeks despite the presence of over
2,000 reinforcement police and military personnel.