Police to hand over Azahari's body after autopsy

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Police say they will allow the relatives of Azahari bin Husin to claim his body and send it back to Malaysia, but only after they have completed a full autopsy on it.

National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko said on Friday that the police would have no problem if Azahari's wife or other family members wanted the body to be returned after a complete examination at the National Police hospital.

"Right now, Azahari's body, as well as Arman's, are being examined at the Sukanto Police Hospital in Kramatjati, East Jakarta," Soenarko said.

Azahari, a Malaysian national, was one of the most wanted men in the Southeast Asia region for his role in some of its deadliest terror attacks. Azahari and his operative Arman were killed during a police raid on their hideout, a villa in Malang, East Java, on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Badaruddin Ismail, a friend of the Azahari family in Malaysia, said in Kuala Lumpur, as reported by AFP, that Azahari's wife Noraini will seek to have her husband's body repatriated.

The bodies of the two terrorists arrived at the Sukanto Police Hospital on Friday for autopsy purposes.

Hospital head Brig. Gen. Aidy Rawas said that the autopsies, to be carried out on Saturday, were part of a standard identification process in forensic work.

He said that the autopsy and dental identification would take around two days to complete, and it would take another six days for DNA testing, depending on when the comparative genetic materials from Azahari's family in Malaysia arrived.

"What is certain is that the identification process through DNA testing will be conducted as secondary verification, as requested by National Police chief Gen. Sutanto," he said.

Aidy's remarks, however, contradict Sutanto's, who said earlier in the day that DNA testing was unnecessary as fingerprinting had provided conclusive evidence that one of two bodies recovered from the destroyed Malang house was that of Azahari.

"We have taken his fingerprints, and it's clear that they match, so we don't need to do a DNA test," he said. "We have data that dates back to 1998 from when Azahari was applying for a job here -- it is 100 percent certain that it was Azahari."

According to the first autopsy report made in East Java, Azahari was killed by three bullets through the heart before he had the chance to blow himself up. He had been wearing at the time of his death a vest with a bomb in it. But Arman did detonate some bombs. The police said they found 30 bombs inside the house.

Head of the health division at the East Java Police Sr. Comr. Musaddeq Ishaq said he had performed the first autopsy according to the Interpol standard and sent the results directly to the National Police chief Gen. Sutanto and East Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Edi Sunarno.

Azahari's death is seen as a major step forward for the local security authorities in battling the Jamaah Islamiyah terror network, which is believed to be behind a series of attacks in the country.

Azahari and his compatriot Noordin M. Top, who is still on the run, are the key figures blamed for those atrocities.