Forensic tests on the DNA from the body of a man killed during a raid by Indonesian police this week confirm he was Noordin Mohammad Top, one of Asia’s most wanted militants, police said yesterday.
Malaysian-born Top, suspected mastermind of deadly suicide July bombings of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, died on Thursday in a shootout during a raid on a house near Solo in Central Java.
“There is no doubt that he’s Noordin M Top,” national police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a Anews conference.
PHOTO: EPA
Hours after the raid, police had identified Top based on fingerprint records held by Malaysian police, but Soekarna said yesterday “the DNA also matches 100 percent.”
The official also held up a photograph of Top’s bearded face taken after his death to show the match with those on police file.
Top had eluded authorities for years. In a raid in Central Java last month some police initially thought they had killed the militant only to have forensic tests prove that wrong days later.
DNA results matched samples from three of Top’s children from Cilacap in Central Java and Malaysia, said Brigadier General Eddy Saparwoko, head of Indonesia’s disaster victim identification unit.
Top had a wife in Malaysia before he fled the country and also took at least one more wife while on the run in Indonesia.
Authorities planned to send Top’s body to Malaysia soon and it would not be necessary for his family there to come to Indonesia, Soekarna said.
Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy and the world’s most populous Muslim country, had been under intense pressure to capture or kill Top ahead of a planned visit by US President Barack Obama in November.
Top, who set up a violent splinter group of regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah, was blamed for attacks in Bali and Jakarta that killed scores of Westerners and Indonesians.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese