Indonesian police today released sketches of three suspects believed to have planted the bombs that destroyed two nightclubs in Bali and killed nearly 200 people.
Police described the three as ”field operators” and said there could be as many as 10 other suspects in the case. Detectives say they have identified one of the three suspects, but refused to release his name.
Major General Made Mangku Pastika, who heads the investigation, said it was possible the three men perished in the blast, citing the large number of unidentified victims.
The suspects are all thought to be Indonesians aged between 20 and 30. Details of the men’s height, weight, facial features and hair length have also been released, as well as other descriptive features such as ”sleepy eyes,” a ”pot belly” and ”pouty lips”.
”We interviewed foreign and Indonesian witnesses who saw these three people at the scene,” a representative
said. ”We have strong indications that the three were involved in bombings.”
Meanwhile, police doctors said they will conduct more medical tests on Abu Bakar Ba’aysir, the ailing Muslim cleric who is suspected of being the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional terrorist network that has been blamed for the Bali attack and was last week added to a UN list of groups linked to the al-Qaida network.
Doctors said Ba’aysir, currently being treated at a police hospital in Jakarta, will be ready for questioning by the end of the week.
Ba’aysir is not officially a suspect in the Bali bombing, but has been accused by police of ordering a string of church bombings in 2000 that killed 19 people and plotting the assassination of the Indonesian president, Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Ba’aysir denies any wrongdoing. His arrest followed the questioning of Omar al-Faruq, an alleged al-Qaida operative taken into custody by Indonesia and turned over to the United States in June. al-Faruq allegedly implicated Bashir in the church bombings and the assassination plot. – Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002