Bali Bombing Mastermind Arrested

INDONESIAN police last night caught the mastermind of the Bali bombing in western Java as he attempted to flee to neighbouring Sumatra.

Imam Samudra, aka Abdul Azis, was captured by police in Merak, at the northwestern tip of Java, about 9pm Sydney time as he was boarding a ferry.

Samudra had with him several bodyguards who were also arrested at the port town, 140km from Jakarta.

Indonesian police chief Dai Bachtiar last night confirmed the arrest and said it planned to take him to either Jakarta or Bali for questioning.

On Sunday, police named Samudra, aged in his 30s, as the "planner, co-ordinator and executor" of the Bali blast.

Initial reports last night indicated Samudra was on a bus being driven on to the ferry.

The arrest ends a 30-day manhunt for the mastermind of the bombing which killed almost 200 people, including 88 Australians.

Police spokesman Brigadier-General Edward Aritonang last night confirmed the arrest, saying Samudra was trying to leave Indonesia aboard a boat.

Samudra, 35, a computer expert, originally came from the small village of Lopang Gede, not far from where he was captured.

However, he had not lived in the area for at least 10 years – after disappearing to Malaysia where police believe he studied engineering at university.

Indonesian police have described Samudra as the architect of the plan to bomb the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar in Kuta in Bali on October 12.

He chaired all planning meetings in the lead-up to the bombing and is said to have been the field commander of the operation, ordering which targets to attack.

Samudra is also suspected of being involved in bombings in Jakarta, west Java and Riau at Christmas Eve 2000 and trained with the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is believed this is where he gained his bomb-making expertise.

In circulating Samudra's description, police said he always wore a hat and carried a laptop computer bag and was the most intellectual of the group of bombers.

His arrest comes after the arrest of Amrozi, who has since confessed to his role in the attacks and told police of the roles of his co-conspirators.

It is understood police used hi-tech equipment to monitor Samudra's mobile telephone calls and messages to track his movements. Similar technology was used by Indonesian police to catch fugitive businessmen Tommy Suharto.

Police have named seven of the suspects but say there are up to another three involved.

Samudra's family say he left their village in 1990 and went to Malaysia to study. They say he had only returned once – about 2000 – to get a new identity card after losing his.

On this occasion he returned with a Malaysian wife and three children but did not even stay the night with his family, appearing to be in a hurry.

He had attended a local Islamic school there and received almost perfect marks for study of the Koran.

Police chief General I. Made Pastika said Samudra first met his co-bombers Amrozi and Amrozi's brother Ali Imron in Malaysia when they had all been working in the country, which is a strong-hold for the banned terror organisation Jemaah Islamiyah.

The two other men arrested last night, described as bodyguards, are believed to have had a role in the Bali bombings, although their identities are uncertain.

They are not believed to be among the six people named as the prime suspects at the weekend.

http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,5537653%255E401,00.html

Suspect gave bomb order: police

IMAM Samudra, the suspected Bali bombing mastermind arrested today, chaired meetings to plan the October 12 nightclub blast, identified the targets and gave the order to carry out the carnage, police said.

After the bombing, which killed at least 190 people, police believe he was cool enough to stay on in the resort island for four days – inspecting the deadly results of his handiwork.

Samudra, who has visited Afghanistan and spent some years in Malaysia, was arrested at Merak in the west of Indonesia's main island of Java on a bus which was about to board a ferry to Sumatra.

Police say two of his bodyguards, who were detained two days earlier, informed on him.

Samudra, an Indonesian and alleged operative for the Jemaah Islamiah regional terror network, is a Muslim aged 35 originally from West Java.

He has six aliases, but was born Abdul Azis.

"Special features are a thin moustache, he's always wearing a hat and carries a laptop bag, and has high mobility," said General I Made Mangku Pastika, the detective leading the multinational probe, when releasing a sketch of Samudra on Sunday.

Police describe him as an "architectural computer expert" and an engineer with a post-secondary education.

They say he is also linked to the church bombings on Christmas Eve 2000.

A Fathoni, a former teacher of Samudra at an Islamic high school, told Metro TV he was a good student.

"He was a good-performing student ... he was always a star of his class, at the top rank, for the first, second and third year he was here.

"He came from a not so well-to-do family, but he was very active in his studies."

Al-Qadar Faisal, a lawyer for the family, said Samudra's mother, Embay Badriah, appeared shocked at the news of the arrest, but also wanted to confirm that the man is really her son.

He said he was trying to arrange a meeting.

An elder sister, Nunung, interviewed on SCTV, said news of the arrest "feels like the heaviest blow for our family".

She identified a photograph of Samudra as her brother but said she had not seen him for years.

"If I do not see my brother on my own, I will not believe it (the arrest)."

Badriah told AFP on Monday her son was a gentle person not involved in terrorism but admitted they lost touch for many years after he went to Malaysia.

"I believe my son was never involved in terrorism," she said.

"He was a reserved and gentle person. He didn't talk much and was very religious," she said from her home in the district of Serang in west Java.

Badriah said that her son left home in 1990 for Malaysia to find work as soon as he graduated from his Islamic high school with flying colours.

She never heard of him until he returned home in 2000 and left again a few hours later.

"He said he was going out to meet old friends but he never came home again," she said, adding that her son had never written to her or telephoned her.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/comp/articleshow?artid=29097753

Cellphones led to Bali killings, helped in arrests

JAKARTA: The mobile phone technology which helped the Bali bombers massacre their victims appears to have helped police catch the alleged mastermind of the plot.

Indonesian police, who are conducting a joint investigation with Australian and other foreign police, arrested Imam Samudra Thursday evening aboard a bus that was about to cross the Sunda Strait by ferry to Sumatra.

"Australian police helped to arrest Imam Samudra with their technology, actually, on the mobile phones, and so on," Edward Aritonang, the Indonesian police officer who speaks for the investigative team, told Australia’s ABC radio Friday.

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 follow him in such a short time?" Pastika said.

A foreign police officer said it would be standard procedure in an investigation such as the Bali case to track cellular phone use, although not necessarily the conversations themselves. The October 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 van packed with explosives stopped briefly directly in front of the club before it exploded with the help of a cellular telephone.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.