Police to hand over Azahari's body after autopsy

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.