Police question owner of van allegedly used in Bali bombing

Police question owner of van allegedly used in Bali bombing

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Denpasar

Police revealed on Wednesday that one of the two men arrested
in East Java on Tuesday turned out to be the owner of the
Mitsubishi van that exploded with deadly force outside a Bali
nightclub last month, killing at least 190 people.

Meanwhile, the police released one man arrested in Medan on
Tuesday as they were unable to connect him with the bombing.

Currently, the police are focusing their investigation on
three people, one in Jakarta and two in East Java, including the
owner of the van.

"As of now, the investigation and questioning are still
underway. I can't say what their status is at the moment. We
don't know to what extent they had a hand in the bombing, but we
are focusing our investigation on them," joint inquiry team
spokesman Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang told reporters in Denpasar
on Wednesday.

Aritonang, however, refused to disclose the identities of the
three.

Separately, East Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Heru Susanto
told Antara on Wednesday that one of the two men arrested in East
Java by the joint task force was the last owner of the van.

The man, identified only as Amz, 30, was arrested in Paciran
village in Lamongan regency, Heru said.

He noted that the man did not resemble any of the men depicted
in the police sketches of three Indonesians wanted in connection
with the blasts.

"At the moment, he is being questioned somewhere in East
Java," Heru revealed.

Antara said that Amz was actually a car dealer who had just
received the van from a man identified as Her in Tuban, East
Java.

The joint inquiry team has said that a white Mitsubishi L300
van, with a powerful explosive device located in its mid-section,
stopped before the massive blast for a few minutes directly in
front of the Sari Club.

The van stopped in a drop-off area not normally used for
parking.

Aritonang, meanwhile, said that the police had not named any
suspects in relation to the bombings.

He added that the police still needed to find more evidence to
support claims that the three people now being questioned
belonged to the group of six to ten people suspected of being
assigned to perpetrate the bombings in Bali's tourist hub of Kuta
on Oct. 12.

The police, according to Aritonang, had taken statements from
more than 80 people and questioned more than 200 people, and were
now focusing their investigations on ten persons.

"We are now focusing on ten people spread over various areas
in Java. They could be anywhere between Jakarta and East Java,"
he said.

In addition, Aritonang said, the police were producing other
sketches of the possible perpetrators of the Bali bombings, but
were not going to make these sketches public anytime soon.

"We are making more than three sketches and they are of
possible suspects, but it is too early for us to release them to
the public," he remarked, while adding that all the sketches
showed typical Indonesian features.

Meanwhile, the disaster victim identification team had as of
Wednesday identified two more bodies, bringing the total number
of identified bodies to 120. The two bodies were one Australian
male and one British male. Meanwhile, the number of bodies that
had been claimed by relatives totaled 92.