Indonesia links Bali suspect to militant network

10.00am

JAKARTA - Indonesia appeared to pull the noose tighter yesterday in its investigation of last month's Bali bombings, saying it had linked the attack's suspected field commander to the Islamic militant Jemaah Islamiah group.

And a lawyer for the suspect, Imam Samudra, said his client had confessed to a role in the bombing of a church on an island near Singapore.

Police said Samudra had admitted he knew Hambali, a Muslim preacher who has been identified by Malaysia and Singapore as a ringleader of Jemaah Islamiah and one of the group's main contacts with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

The bombing in Bali, Indonesia's premier tourist resort, killed at least 185 people, mostly foreigners.

National Police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said Samudra, whom authorities identify as a top planner of the October 12 attacks, had at first denied any links to Hambali, alleged operational leader of Jemaah Islamiah.

"But after we backed it with evidence and other findings he then confessed 'yes, I know Hambali'," Bachtiar told reporters, declining to elaborate on details of the connection.

Samudra, 35, was arrested last week near Jakarta as he was about to board a ferry for the island of Sumatra.

Police say Samudra has confessed to participating in the Bali attacks. They say he has also admitted involvement in church blasts in several Indonesian cities on Christmas Eve 2000.

Hambali is also wanted for involvement in the church attacks. Jemaah Islamiah is alleged to want to set up an Islamic state across a huge swathe of Southeast Asia.

Asked whether Samudra had described his links to another Christmas bombing suspect, Abu Bakar Bashir, who several Southeast Asian nations say is Jemaah Islamiah's spiritual leader, the police general said: "He hasn't told us."

Bashir, detained in a police hospital, has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Jemaah Islamiah.

Samudra's lawyer Achmad Michdan told reporters his client had confessed to police a role in bombing a church in Batam, an Indonesian island close to Singapore, but nothing else while the lawyer was in the room.

"He was involved in the Batam explosion. He mentioned a church there. He was concerned about Batam. His motivation is jihad (holy war)," said Michdan, who also represents Bashir.

Indonesian police say they have arrested 15 people in connection with the blasts on Bali but it is unclear how many are directly implicated.

Samudra is currently being held in police headquarters in Jakarta and it is unclear when police will take him to Bali, where the first arrested suspect, Amrozi, is detained.

Police have based much of their investigation on confessions they say Amrozi has made. Police say most of his statements match Samudra's confession, but a few discrepancies have appeared.

Samudra has asserted that the blast in Paddy's Pub, one of the two bombed bars in Bali's Kuta district, was a suicide attack.

The suggestion of a suicide bomber has added a new dimension to the threat posed by Islamic militants in the region, Australian police have said.

Malaysia said on Tuesday that police had arrested four suspected members of Jemaah Islamiah, including members of a suicide squad who were part of a plot to bomb US interests in Singapore last year.

Indonesian police said on Wednesday they had flown to Jakarta a man who claimed Samudra had told him to attack US facilities in the North Sulawesi city of Manado.

Samudra's associate, Suryadi, "has been transported this morning so that we can confront him with Imam Samudra," said Manado police chief Hengky Kaluwara.

Suryadi was caught two weeks ago during a robbery in a Manado hotel, police said. Police sources in Manado said Suryadi had confessed Samudra told him to carry out robberies and bombings at US-linked facilities in the city.

- REUTERS

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