Six countries officially join Bali investigation

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Kuta, Bali

Indonesia on Friday signed an agreement with six countries to set up a a joint investigation into last week's bombing in Bali as joint team members cautioned that the probe might take a long time to complete.

Insp. Gen. I Made Mangku Pastika, Indonesia's chief investigator on the case, vowed to intensify the probe with the international help, stressing that last Saturday's terrorist strike was not only an attack on Bali but on international civilization as well.

"This task (to investigate the bombing in Bali) is a challenge for me because the bomb explosion here is not just an attack on Bali or Indonesia, but also an attack on the world's civilization and humanity," Mangku said at a joint press briefing with Assistant Commissioner Graham Ashton from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) at the Hard Rock hotel here.

Mangku said he signed the pact with representatives of police forces from Australia, Britain, the United States, Germany, New Zealand and Japan to jointly investigate the case.

"This morning we signed a cooperation agreement on the joint investigations into the Bali blast in which the Indonesian police will be assisted by international police forces," he said

"The signing of the agreement showed the Indonesian government's appreciation of the case and we will give our assistance to the country ... that includes to involve our forensic expertise," Ashton added.

Meanwhile the task force's senior officers said they were in the process of obtaining forensic samples it believed to be "significant".

They have also "formed a view" about a single group that may have been responsible for the weekend explosions which left more than 180 people dead and hundreds injured.

"We are getting significant information in and we do have a view but at this time we are not prepared to say what that view is," Ashton said as quoted by AFP.

But he admitted that catching the terrorists would be a long and exhaustive process and was not prepared to forecast when police might achieve a breakthrough.

Under the investigation agreement, Indonesian security officers will cooperate with the foreigners for a period of three years, if the investigation is completely closed by that time.

Almost 100 international officers -- 49 Australian Federal Police, 24 from Australian state forces and 21 experts from Britain, New Zealand, the United States, Germany, Japan and Sweden -- have been assigned to the operation.

The joint investigation team is divided into two groups that will focus on providing technical assistance to the Indonesian Police to carry out forensic examinations at the crime site, both for medical and investigation purposes.

The Australian contingent has been in the country since Sunday helping to identify victims, most of whom were Australian.

According to Mangku, the Indonesian team consisted of officers from the National Police Headquarters, Bali Police and East Java Police.

The team has so far interviewed several key witnesses, including a former Indonesian Air Force officer due to his expertise in the type of explosives used. However, the team has not yet declared any suspects. The 57 Indonesian witnesses are not in jail, but placed at "certain places to ensure a smooth investigation process".

Contrary to previous reports, none of the witnesses were foreigners, the officers asserted.

Mangku said the team had also conducted investigations in several regions of the country but refused to disclose which.

Meanwhile, a military source said security officers were currently monitoring Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara province and Sibolga in North Sumatra province because "some members of the country's radical groups, including Laskar Jihad, are currently holed up in those places."

The involvement of foreign officers in the investigation has created a division among the Indonesian security authorities, with some rejecting the involvement of foreigners in the investigation process.

"If these foreign investigators insist on helping us (Indonesia's intelligence), they can only help us in (providing) technology and expertise, but they must not carry out direct intelligence operations," a top-level intelligence source told The Jakarta Post.

Confusion is also rife among Indonesian security officers as to the involvement of United Nations investigators on the team. Earlier on Wednesday National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Saleh Saaf said that UN officers were joining the joint investigation. However, Saleh's statement was immediately denied by Brig. Gen Edward Aritonang, spokesman for the investigation team.

"No, they (the UN officers) are not included in the MoU. There are several countries involved, but not the UN," Edward told the Post here Friday.

Meanwhile an intelligence source speculated that the UN officers were just assisting the forensic team, considering that "the UN has a big concern to create peace in the world, as well as to help fund the investigation."

The source also said that unlike the UN peacekeeping forces which usually perform a coordination role among foreign security officers, the UN officers in Bali were not, as yet, leading the team.