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First suspect arrested over bombings

Indonesian police said yesterday they have made their first arrest in connection with the probe into the Oct. 1 suicide bombings in Bali.

A construction worker was arrested in the town of Jember in East Java on Sunday and was flown to Bali island the next day for questioning, said national police deputy spokesman Sunarko Danu Ardanto.

"The arrest was made under the terrorism act and police have seven days to detain him for questioning in relation to the bombings," Ardanto said.

It was not clear whether the man is believed to have been directly involved in the attacks on crowded restaurants, which killed 20 people plus the three bombers.

Indo Pos newspaper said the arrested man is suspected to have shared a rented room on Bali with one of the three bombers.

Police have been struggling to identify the trio, believed to be from a new generation of radicals, despite issuing photos of their heads, which were severed by the blasts.

"This is a development following the questioning of witnesses," Sunarko said, declining to say whether the man was arrested as a witness or a suspect.

He said police have so far questioned 259 witnesses.

Another national police spokesman, Bambang Kuncoro, said in Jakarta that a man had told police that one of the suspected bombers resembled a man who rented a house in the Bali capital Denpasar.

"One of 11 witnesses... he recognized one of the pictures distributed by the police as very similar to a man who rented a lodging in Denpasar," Kuncoro said.

Kuncoro also said police had found pieces of paper containing scribbles relating to bombs, a personal computer and an audio-visual device. He did not elaborate or say where the discovery was made.

Officials suspect two members of the Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah -- Malaysians Noordin Mohammad Top and Azahari Husin -- played leading roles in organizing the Oct. 1 blasts and previous bombings in Bali on Oct. 12 three years ago.

Ardanto also showed a new set of pictures of the bombers' heads.

The battered but still recognizable heads have been reconstructed with bones repositioned with the help of foreign forensic experts, to give a more accurate likeness.
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