Six airport cameras fail to spot bombers

Multa Fidrus and Damar Harsanto, Tangerang/Jakarta

A total of six cameras above Gate 3 and Gate 4 at the lobby of the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport terminal F all failed to monitor the events leading up to the bomb that exploded and injured 11 people on Sunday morning.

"When the bomb went off, those cameras were on but officers in the control room failed to monitor the bomb or the suspects through those cameras because their line of sight was blocked by the A&W food & beverage stand," airport police chief Adj. Comr. Sri Suari Wahyudi told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Suari's statement, however, conflicted with earlier statements by City Police chief Insp. Gen. Makbul Padmanagara who said that one of the cameras near the blast site was out of order.

Suari said there were more than 400 cameras installed to monitor all parts of the airport from several monitoring rooms. But the control of all the monitoring rooms was centralized at the airport tower.

"I have just visited three of the airport camera monitoring rooms. One is at terminal F, one is at the airport's main security post and another (the main room) is in the tower," Suari said, noting that all officers who were assigned in the monitoring rooms were security officers employed by airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II.

All airport security officers on the scene declined to comment on the monitoring cameras.

The Post was also not allowed to see the monitoring rooms.

There were six cameras placed over the terminal F lobby and entryway. Two cameras were large and long and four others were small. They are all static. None of the staff or police were willing to say whether they worked or not.

The bomb exploded at the departure terminal, between Gate 3 and Gate 4. Although the cameras were apparently active, none was able to record anything about the bomber and his/her movements for one reason or another. In addition, the three cameras near Gate 4 were the ones blocked by A&W while the three cameras over Gate 3 were said to be blocked by the Fuji Image Plaza stand. All monitoring cameras were positioned facing the passenger entrance.

Meanwhile, Suari said there were a total of 260 officers deployed at the airport for the investigation. They were divided into three shifts.

In addition, there were also four police bomb squad units with four officers each assigned at the airport, and two police dogs for tracking bombs and two others for tracking humans.

No suspects have been named in the case as yet.

The police have repeatedly stressed that the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) might be behind the airport bombing due to similarities found in the type of the device as compared to the recent bombs in Medan, North Sumatra, and on Jl. Wahid Hasyim behind the United Nations representative office in Central Jakarta.

GAM claimed responsibility for the bomb attack in Medan, but it strongly denied any involvement in the airport bombing.

In contrast to his earlier statement, National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on Wednesday that he had yet to reach any conclusion about the group behind the airport bombing.

"We have not yet concluded whether GAM or other groups were behind the bomb attack," Da'i said.

Da'i admitted that police were still questioning some witnesses.

A prominent criminologist lambasted the police for being so quick to jump to a conclusion about GAM in the bombing, especially as there was heightened tension between GAM and the government of late.

"Please, police just shut up. Let us, observers, give our analysis over the bomb attacks instead" Adrianus Meliala, a criminologist from the University of Indonesia told reporters.

Adrianus said that it would really be nice if the police officers actually used all their capabilities to prevent similar terrorist attacks in the country.

"Remember, the police now have strong legal backing, the Anti- terrorism Law, to enable them to prevent terrorist attacks from occurring based on intelligence reports. Why then are they not able to use it to prevent the bomb attacks?" queried Adrianus, who is also an advisor to the National Police chief.