Police say bombing suspects still in RI, likely in 'pesantren'
Police say bombing suspects still in RI, likely in 'pesantren'
The Jakarta Post, Denpasar/Jakarta/Surabaya
Police investigators hunting down the Bali bombers said on Monday
that they believed the six suspects whose sketches were released
on Sunday were still hiding in Indonesia.
"We believe that all these people are still in Indonesia.
Maybe it's easier for them to hide in this country than overseas.
But I don't have any proof yet," Insp. Gen. Made Mangku Pastika
told a news conference in Denpasar, Bali.
In Jakarta, National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said the
suspects still at large may be holed up inside pesantren (Islamic
boarding schools) around the country.
"Yes. This is what we believe from the various pieces of
information that we have obtained," he said when asked by
journalists whether the suspects, all aged in their thirties, may
be hiding in pesantren.
Police have detained a 40-year-old mechanic named Amrozi, who
has confessed to involvement in the Oct. 12 tragedy. On Sunday,
they released sketches and detailed descriptions of the other
six.
Amrozi, a junior high school graduate, has named Imam Samudra
alias Kudama, Fatih or Abdul Aziz as the mastermind behind the
attacks along with Idris, who is believed to have been his right-
hand man.
Samudra, 35, studied at the Al-Tarbiyyah Al-Islamiyyah
Luqmanul Hakiem Madrasah in the southern Malaysian state of Johor
before becoming a teacher there and marrying a Malaysian woman,
the Malay Mail said on Monday.
It said Idris alias Johni Hendrawan, who allegedly provided
financial and logistical support for the operation, also studied
at the school.
Several teachers at the school, including the principal,
Shahril Hat, were detained by Malaysian police in January this
year for their alleged involvement with the Malaysian Militant
Group (KMM), the paper said.
The KMM has been linked to Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), which aims
to set up a regional pan-Islamic state.
Pastika said Samudra had been to Afghanistan, but he did not
know in which year.
Embay Badriah, who is Samudra's mother, said that her son left
home in 1990 for Malaysia to find work as soon as he graduated
from an Islamic high school with flying colors.
She never heard of him until he returned home in 2000 and left
again a few hours later.
"He said he was going out to meet old friends but he never
came home again," she told AFP, adding that her son had never
written to her or telephoned her.
Embay said she believed Samudra was never involved in
terrorism and questioned whether he was the same person
identified by the police as Samudra.
"He was a reserved and gentle person. He didn't talk much and
was very religious," she said from her home in the Banten town of
Serang.
Embay, a single mother, said police had not so far come to her
home to ask about her son.
In a related development, Amrozi's cousin Sumarno surrendered
on Monday to East Java police, who have been seeking him for
illegal possession of firearms.
The police found a cache of assorted weapons and more than
5,000 bullets in a forest near Amrozi's home village in
Tenggulun, Lamongan, East Java. The links between the weapons and
the Bali bombing remain unclear.
Accompanied by his lawyer, M. Yasin, Sumarno gave himself up
to the Ngawi police in East Java on Monday morning. Yasin, also
acting for Amrozi, said he had persuaded Sumarno to answer the
accusations against him.
"He (Sumarno) came to the Ngawi police after his name was
mentioned on the list of wanted persons," the lawyer said.
He said Sumarno, now being questioned as a witness, had been
asked by Amrozi's brother Ali Imron to drive a van carrying the
illegal firearms into the forest. However, Sumarno denied knowing
that the load he was transporting consisted of weapons.