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Indonesia: Police Chief Meets with Bombing Suspect


Indonesia's national police chief has met with the prime suspect in the investigation of the deadly October 12 bomb attack in Bali. The police also have named another suspect in the attack.

Indonesia's National Police chief, Dai Bachtiar told reporters that the suspect, identified as Amrozi, apologized to his family for of his arrest but he did not apologize to the families of the victims killed in the Bali. Television reports show that Mr. Amrozi was dressed in a prison shirt and short pants, and was handcuffed for much of the meeting Wednesday.

Authorities arrested Mr. Amrozi last week. They say he confessed to owning the van that was packed with explosives and detonated outside a busy nightclub. The blast killed at least 180 people, most of them foreign tourists. Police have labeled him a "field coordinator" in the bomb plot, which they think was carried out by at least 10 people.

Police say they are now hunting for the others involved in the plot. Among them are Mr. Amrozi's two brothers, who are suspected of hiding a cache of weapons near Mr. Amrozi's home in East Java. Wednesday, the police released the name of another suspect, Imam Samudra. All of the suspects are believed to be Indonesian nationals.

Earlier this week police confirmed that Mr. Amrozi had been a student of a radical Islamic cleric when both men lived in Malaysia. Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir is now in police detention in the Indonesian capital on charges related to a different terrorist incident, which took place in 2000.

Singapore, Malaysia and the United States say that Mr. Bashir is the head of the regional militant group Jemaah Islamiyah - which Washington links to the al-Qaida terrorist network. Mr. Bashir denies all charges of terrorism. So far police have not linked Mr. Bashir to the Bali bombing.

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