Source of embassy bomb funding same as Marriott: Police
Source of embassy bomb funding same as Marriott: Police
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Bandung/Klaten/Makassar
The money used for the deadly blast at the Australian Embassy was
likely part of a US$50,000 fund, which also paid for the expenses
used in the attack at the JW Marriott Hotel last year, a police
general close to the investigation said on Monday.
"Apparently, there was a sufficient amount of money still left
from the funds used to finance the Marriott bombing," he told The
Jakarta Post without elaborating further.
The general said the money transferred to the perpetrators of
the Sept. 9 embassy blast that killed at least 10 people,
including one suspected suicide bomber, came from outside the
country via unidentified members of the al Qaedah-linked regional
terrorist network Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).
Usman Gunawan alias Gun Gun, the younger brother of alleged JI
leader Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali, confessed to police that
he transferred the US$50,000, along with telecommunications
equipment to his brother last year before both were arrested.
Hambali has been in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location
following his capture in Thailand in August 2003.
The JI has been blamed for a string of terrorist attacks in
Indonesia, including the Bali bombings on Oct. 12, 2002 and the
Marriott attack in Jakarta on Aug. 5, 2003.
Gun Gun and several other Indonesian students, including
Mohammad Syaifudin, Ilham Sofyandi, David Pintarto, Furqon
Abdullah, Muhammad Anwar As-Shadaqqi, were arrested in Karachi,
Pakistan, last September for their alleged roles in terrorist
activities.
The suspects were subsequently handed over to the Indonesian
authorities and several of them are still on trial for helping
finance terrorism.
Meanwhile, the police general also confirmed that one of the
fugitive terror suspects, identified only as Heri, whose picture
was released on Saturday, was the same person identified as Rois,
who is also suspected for having a role in the Marriott bombing.
Heri was the last owner of the van used in the embassy blast,
police have said.
Speculations grew on Monday that Heri was himself the possible
suicide bomber after police said the DNA tests showed that body
parts found at the site did not match the DNA taken from family
members of Hasan and Jabir, two men who were previously suspected
of being the suicide bombers.
The National Police began on Monday distributing millions of
posters with pictures of Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Muhammad
Top as well as other terror suspects across Indonesia, including
all provinces on the island of Java as well as South Sulawesi, to
seek public help to capture them.
The police have put a Rp 1 billion (US$111,000) reward over
the heads of Azahari and Noordin for information leading to their
arrest. The two are Malaysian nationals operating with JI in this
country.
The posters carried various possible versions of what the two
alleged bomb masterminds could look like now, along with
statistics about their features and body types.
Other posters have the images of the seven other suspects
identified as Hasan, Abu Dujana, Dul Matin, Rois, Dzulkarnaen,
Zuhroni, alias Oni or Nuaim, as well as Umar, alias Patek or
Zacky.
The police are offering a reward of Rp 500 million for the
information leading to the arrest of one of them.
In Bandung, West Java, dozens of police detectives combed the
village of Citepus in Cicendo district, where Azahari and Noordin
were rumored to be hiding out.
Police disseminated thousands of pictures of Azahari, Noordin
and the eight other suspects at polling stations across Klaten in
Central Java and Makassar in South Sulawesi.