Bali bomb suspect arrested

Published on 11/10/2005 11:25

Indonesian police have arrested a man over the Bali suicide bombings, which killed 23 people on 1 October.

The man, a 45-year-old construction worker known only by the initials HS, was arrested in the East Javan town of Jember on Sunday under Indonesia’s anti-terrorism laws. It is reported that the man may have rented a room with one of the suicide bombers.

Deputy national police spokesman Soenarko Artanto said: "This person is strongly suspected of having links with the Bali blasts."

Three suicide bombers killed 23 people on 1 October and injured 150 when they detonated rucksacks filled with explosives after walking into restaurants on the resort of Bali. The majority of the casualties were Indonesian.

Eyewitnesses are believed to have seen one of the suicide bombers nervously surveying his target before the attack.

Police spokesman Commissioner Bambang Kuncoko said: "Witnesses saw someone who looked like one of the perpetrators walking near [one target] wearing a black T-shirt and trousers and looking restless."

Suspicion over the latest attacks in Bali has fallen on the terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiah, or a splinter group of the network, because of their proximity to the third anniversary of the first attacks on Bali in 2002. Two hundred and two people, mainly foreign tourists, were killed when a bomb was detonated in a busy nightclub. Members of the Jemaah Islamiah organisation were found to be behind the 2002 bombings and two other terrorist attacks in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Police have questioned 259 people during the ongoing investigation.