Police to summon Aceh governor over bombing
JAKARTA (JP): City police detectives plan to summon Aceh governor Abdullah Puteh and former United Development Party (PPP) chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum for questioning over the recent dormitory blast in South Jakarta.
Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Anton Bachrul Alam said on Monday that the police would write to President Abdurrahman Wahid and Minister of Home Affairs and Regional Autonomy Surjadi Sudirdja to seek their approval to question Abdullah.
Anton said both Abdullah and Ismail would be quizzed as witnesses in the May 10 explosion in Guntur area in South Jakarta that claimed three lives.
"The names of both the governor and the former chairman were among the names of Acehnese officials listed in the evidence found amongst the ruins of the Guntur bombing. These men could have been donors for the activities of the Aceh Referendum Information Center (SIRA)," Anton said.
Police detectives believe that the Acehnese student dormitory was a front for bomb-assemblers, one of whom had died in the blast when he reportedly accidentally set off a bomb.
Among the evidence found in the Guntur ruins, were numerous SIRA documents and books on Aceh.
Police later announced that the primary suspect in the Guntur bombing, Taufik Abdullah, had very strong links with SIRA activists who were allegedly behind the bombing. The activists, declared suspects and still at large, were identified as Diana, Gafi and Nazaruddin.
On Monday afternoon, SIRA coordinator Faisal Syaifuddin arrived at the city police headquarters. He expressed surprise that he was summoned not for questioning over the bombing, but for charges of inciting hatred in a protest he allegedly joined outside the United Nations building last November.
"First of all, I did not join any protest outside the United Nations building last November. I did join a protest last November outside the Dutch Embassy in South Jakarta, and it did not incite hatred against the country," Faisal told reporters following questioning at the city police.
He added that the content of the police summons sent to him was incorrect.
Faisal added that he had no idea who the three suspects at large were, whom police had named as "SIRA activists".
Separately, Faisal's lawyer Johnson Panjaitan said on Monday that after raiding SIRA offices in the capital and confiscating some equipment from the offices, including a computer, police finally returned the "evidence" to the SIRA offices.
Earlier, police officers said that the confiscated evidence from the SIRA offices could have been used by the suspects at large.
Musician Fariz Rustam Munaf also appeared at the city police headquarters on Monday for questioning over the bombing.
Fariz told police that the primary suspect, Taufik Abdullah, was a bassist in his musical band and that as far as he knew Taufik was a good man and had never caused any problems.
In regard to the letter he had written to commander of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), Tengku Abdullah Syafe'i, Fariz said that he had written the letter because he wanted to meet with the GAM commander personally to talk about his new album.
"I wanted the sales of the album to go to Acehnese refugees. I had written the letter in Indonesian, and needed Taufik to translate it into Acehnese, since I cannot write or speak Acehnese," Fariz said.
City police chief of detectives Sr. Comr. Adang Rochana said that both Fariz and Faisal were scheduled to undergo further questioning on Tuesday. (ylt)