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