Surveillance, tipoffs, phone tapping aid in Samudra's arrest

The Jakarta Post, Agencies

Surveillance, tipoffs and cellular phone monitoring by the joint international police team led to the arrest on Thursday of Imam Samudra, one of the main suspects of the Oct. 12 Bali bombing, which killed over 190 people.

According to police, Samudra was arrested at 5:30 p.m., on board a Kurnia Line bus that was about to go aboard a ferry to Sumatra from Merak port in Banten province. The port is some 90 kilometers west of Jakarta.

Police acted after a tipoff from Samudra's acquaintances Yudi alias Andri or Andri Oktavia, and Abdul Rauf, alias Syam, who were arrested earlier on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

It was still unclear however, how the two were arrested and connected to Samudra or the bombing but police implicated Yudi and Rauf in a robbery which was allegedly was plotted by Samudra.

On Thursday, Samudra gave no resistance to the arrest. On the previous day Samudra was reported buying two tickets from a bus ticket agent in Cilegon.

He came alone to the bus station at around 4 p.m., in a chartered public minivan. He directly boarded the bus. Before the bus entered the ferry, police stormed into it and made the arrest.

Rauf and Yudi identified Samudra on the spot.

After the arrest, police took Samudra away in a white Kijang van whereupon they drove to several areas of Banten asking him to show them the hideouts of other suspects.

The police reportedly found a BNI account under the name of Abdul Aziz, reportedly his birth name.

As of Friday evening, he remained in custody at the Cilegon police station, a short drive from Merak port.

Samudra was the second suspect to be arrested after Amrozi. He was described by National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar as the mastermind of the Bali bombing. He was so important that Da'i rushed to Cilegon, Banten, to pay a visit and question the suspect himself.

The spokesman for the multinational investigation team Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang said the arrest was a joint effort of Indonesian police and the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

The manhunt was backed up by Australian police efforts, Aritonang said.

Police had reportedly monitored the cellular phone used by Samudra until the telephone number became inactive after Amrozi was nabbed.

"Australia police helped to arrest Samudra with their technology, actually, on the mobile phones, and so on," Aritonang was quoted by AFP as saying. He did not go into further detail, however.

The Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, on Friday played down Aritonang's comments.

Speaking to reporters in Australia, Keelty would not comment on the technology other than to say it was off the shelf commercial technology and not new.

The head of the Bali bomb investigative team, Indonesian Inspector General I Made Mangku Pastika, said Samudra's arrest was "not exactly" a result of cellular phone tracking.

"Because he only operates his mobile phone for a very short time, less than 20 seconds. How could we trace him in such a short time?" Pastika said.

The Oct. 12 blast outside the Sari nightclub in Bali's bustling Kuta tourist strip killed more than 190 people, almost half of them Australians.

Police say a Mitsubishi L-300 van packed with explosives stopped briefly directly in front of the club before it exploded with the help of a cellular telephone.

"We know this bomb exploded with a cellular phone, and it exploded by means of his phone," Pastika said last Sunday, referring to bombing suspect Dulmatin, who is one of five suspects still wanted for the attack.

"He made contact via an SMS (short message service)," the police general said.

"Apparently from the mobile phone fragments at the edge of the road we are certain that the bomb was exploded with a cellular phone," Pastika said.

Very shortly after the Sari bombing a small bomb caused minor damage near the office of the US honorary consul in Denpasar, Bali.

"It has been determined that a mobile phone formed part of the device used in that explosion," Australian police have said in a statement.

Da'i Bachtiar has said that when they were planning the Bali attack, the bomb plotters exchanged SMS phone messages after holding face-to-face meetings.

Samudra's journey until the Bali bombing

1970: Samudra is born in Lopang Gede village, Serang, Banten.

1990: He leaves Serang for Malaysia after graduating from a local Islamic high school. In the same year, he goes to Pakistan and then Afghanistan, where he lives for two and a half years and learns how to assemble bombs and use other weapons.

1994: He returns to Malaysia and lives in the state of Johor for six and a half years. He works as a textile trader and lecturer, but continues to develop his skill in making bombs. It is during this time that he learns how to use the Internet. He contacts Muslims around the world, which shapes his view on jihad.

2000: He returns to Indonesia for a month, and visits Batam, where he allegedly sets off a bomb. He is also suspected of plotting a series of church bombings across the country, which killed 19 people. He later goes back to Malaysia.

2001: He returns to Indonesia to allegedly plan another series of bombings. For the Bali bombing, he is said to have chaired a series of meetings in Central Java.

Oct. 12, 2002: The Bali blasts kill more than 190 people. Samudra stays in Bali until a day after the bombing, and then goes by bus to Banyuwangi, East Java, where he changes trains and travels to several cities in Java.

Nov. 21, 2002: Samudra is arrested in the port of Merak, Banten.