Police say SIRA activists involved in Guntur blast

JAKARTA (JP): Jakarta Police Chief Insp. Gen. Sofjan Yacob said on Sunday that there was strong evidence to suggest the involvement of activists from the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA) in Thursday's bombing.

"Our primary suspect in this case, Taufik Abdullah, is a SIRA activist. Police are also tracking down three other suspects currently at large, one of whom is reportedly a SIRA activist named Gafi," Sofjan told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

He added that another suspect who also remains at large, Diana, is also allegedly linked to the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) bombings last September, which claimed at least 10 lives.

"We received this information from one of the arrested suspects, Hidayatulloh, alias Mursalih. This is why we are so keen to get hold of the three suspects at large," Sofjan said.

At least three people were killed in the blast, the first since the Christmas Eve bombings that rocked the capital last year.

Police will soon question SIRA leaders over the matter, Sofjan added.

Of the 18 people grilled over the case, at least six have been declared suspects.

SIRA, a nongovernmental organization based in Aceh, has been known for its support of the province's independence. It organized a mass rally last November to call for a referendum for independence.

The Jakarta chapter of SIRA denied on Saturday its alleged role in Thursday's bombing and demanded that the police and the military apologize for their baseless accusations.

The center's coordinator, Faisal Saifuddin, said on Saturday that such an allegation was in contradiction to the non-violence preached by the SIRA movement, adding that the incident was engineered by "the center's enemy".

"Our movement has nothing to do with the tragedy or with the dormitory. None of the people from the dormitory was a SIRA activist, we don't know these people," he told a media conference.

He also lamented the police investigation in which witnesses were not allowed to be accompanied by lawyers, and where the principle of the presumption of innocence was not upheld.

"The police should restore our (good) name and hold a transparent investigation," he said, adding that they would be willing to help the police with their investigation.

A blast destroyed a students' dormitory on Thursday afternoon belonging to the Acehnese Iskandar Muda Students Welfare Foundation in the Guntur subdistrict of Setiabudi, South Jakarta.

Three people, who were in the dormitory, died instantly, while 18 others were injured and later questioned by Jakarta Police.

So far, seven people have been named suspects, including three who are still at large; Tarniji, Gapi and Diana, who were at the site minutes before the blast.

According to a police report based on the witnesses' testimonies, the three were known SIRA activists, and Gapi himself claimed that he had been given an order to cause explosions across Java.

Police concluded that the dormitory was a place used to assemble bombs or to store explosives, by a "highly organized" group, while revealing that they had found several SIRA documents inside the building and planned to question a SIRA leader as a witness in the case.

Faisal argued that such documents could easily be obtained by the public from their office in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, as all Acehnese in the city were allowed to join SIRA rallies, as long as they did not bring weapons and drugs.

"We have often had such accusations leveled at us, which indicates the existence of some parties aimed at putting an end to our peaceful movement. This is very neat counter-intelligence work. The Acehnese should be aware of them," he said.

Faisal also commented that this tragedy was likely to have been engineered to expedite the government's plan to impose a military operation and civil emergency status in the strife-torn province.

Lawyer Johnson Panjaitan from the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association alleged that police investigations tended to insinuate that Acehnese killed each other so that the Acehnese would receive all the blame for the bombing incidents.

Panjaitan is the defense lawyer handling two cases which involve Acehnese suspects, the JSX bombing last year and the trial of SIRA chairman Muhammad Nazar in Banda Aceh. Nazar was sentenced in March to 10 months in jail for subversion.

"From my experience, the indictments in these trials has not been based on thorough investigation," he said.

He indicated that investigators in cases involving Acehnese people made up charges to implicate them in the separatist movement. (ylt/bby)