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More on the busted JI members
Antiterror police have arrested two more men alleged to have links with fugitive Malaysian terrorist Noordin M. Top, who has been accused of masterminding a series of deadly bombings in Indonesia.Joko Wibowo, 25, alias Abu Sayap, was arrested in the Central Java town of Karanganyar on Wednesday, while Ibnu Pramono, 30, in Semarang on Tuesday evening, police and relatives said on Thursday. Joko was arrested by the elite antiterror police as he was believed to be a close friend of Noordin, a key leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiyah hard-line network blamed for several terrorist attacks in Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, mainly foreign tourists. At the time of the arrest police also seized a revolver and 30 rounds of various kinds of ammunition, including M-16 bullets belonging to the suspect. Meanwhile, Ibnu was arrested by antiterror police at his home in Central Java's Semarang on Tuesday evening, said Ibnu's brother-in-law Sugeng Romadhon on Thursday. "I don't know why Ibnu was arrested as he did not exhibit any strange behavior or had not joined any organizations. He worked as a mathematics teacher at nearby Pedurungan Kidul I elementary school," Sugeng said. The arrest warrant stated that Ibnu had regularly lent his motorcycle to unidentified clerics, Sugeng said. Both Joko and Ibnu were believed to be close to Subur Sugiarto alias Abu Mujahid, 35, who was nabbed by police, also in Central Java, on Tuesday afternoon while he was taking a bus to Jakarta. Subur, who is a teacher of Islam, was believed to have encouraged the three suicide bombers who blew up restaurants in Bali in October last year, in which 20 people were killed. Police raided Subur's house in Kendal near Semarang in November and found ammunition in the form of 40 M-16 bullets, 40 pistol bullets, books on Islam, VCD recordings, bomb-making manuals as well as documents that led to his name being added to a list of terror suspects. The arrests of both Joko and Ibnu as well as Subur brings the number of captured hard-liners believed to have helped Noordin evade capture to eight over the last few days. The other five were Ardi Wibowo, Joko (not Joko Wibowo), Wahyu, Puji Srimulyono (all of them in Semarang) and Aditya in Klaten, Central Java. The recent arrests have been confirmed by Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Dody Sumantyawan, who said that the arrests were part of police efforts to develop their investigation into terrorist networks in Central Java. "We have complete data, including the ones linked to a murder case in 2001 in Surakarta," he said. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-01-20 |
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