Student arrested for bomb possesion

Student arrested for bomb possesion

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Police have arrested a third suspect in connection to eight
bombs that were found at a hotel room in Central Jakarta on
Saturday, Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Sofjan Jacoeb announced
on Monday.

Sofjan said police seized the suspect, named Rendi, who
claimed to be a university student in Jakarta, during a raid on
Sunday afternoon carried out by the police's anti-terrorist
squad.

"The three suspects are currently under police investigation
at Jakarta Police Headquarters," Sofjan told reporters.

Police had arrested two suspects, named Kesman, 40, a former
journalist of Neraca daily and Yupiter Adventius Koeang, 30, who
also claimed to be a student of Jayabaya University, over the
possession of eight homemade bombs found in room No.105 in Hotel
Mega on Jl. Proklamasi, where both had stayed as guests for three
days.

The bombs were brought from Ambon and assembled in Jakarta.

The suspects, however, remained silent about the target of the
bombs.

As for Friday's bomb attack on the front yard of Petra church
in Koja, North Jakarta, Sofjan said the police were still
tracking down three other suspects, identified as Hilal, Arianto
Aris and another unidentified suspect.

The police had arrested two suspects in the church bomb
attack, Wahyu Handoko, 20 and Ujang Arif, 17. They admitted that
they were aiming to kill Rev. Diane Akyuwen, who had previously
worked in Maluku.

The police have so far identified the Ambon-based Mujahedin
group as being involved in the church bomb attack.

"The (Mujahedin) group is allegedly chasing after rival groups
who had fled to Jakarta," Sofjan said.

The Mujahedin group took part in the destruction of churches
in Maluku in 1999.

Meanwhile, Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Anton Bachrul
Alam, citing reports from the police intelligence unit, warned
that there had been strong signals of efforts to disrupt security
and order in the capital ahead of the fasting month of Ramadhan,
slated to begin on Nov. 17.

"Places of worship must increase their own security to prevent
such crimes from recurring," he said, recalling a spate of
bombings that damaged several churches in the capital on
Christmas Eve last year.

Those cases remain unsolved until today.

Anton called on the public to help secure local places of
worship and to immediately call the police if they found anything
suspicious.