Boy nabbed for bomb hoax case

Saturday, March 10, 2007
A 10-year-old boy has been arrested for sending bomb threats from his mother's cellular phone, police said Friday.

"Though he is only a child, what he did is an act of terror and we must discipline him in accordance with the law in order to prevent similar cases from occurring in the future," Sr. Comr. Carlo Brix Tewu, the chief of general crimes at the Jakarta Police, told reporters.

Police have also arrested three men on similar charges.

They said 16 bomb threats had been received this year, including from a man claiming to be a member of international terror network al-Qaeda.

The threats include the one against the Bank Indonesia building on Feb. 19, Kelapa Gading Shopping mall in North Jakarta on Feb.26, the National Monument in Central Jakarta and the U.S. Embassy on March 1.

On March 5, a bomb threat was directed at the British Embassy.

All of the threats, communicated via the police's Traffic Management Center (TMC) hot line, turned out to be hoaxes.

A farmer in Ponorogo, East Java, was arrested last week in relation to the threat against the Bank Indonesia building, while the boy was arrested for the National Monument bomb hoax. On Sunday, a university student from Brebes, Central Java, was arrested in connection with the threat against Kelapa Gading shopping mall.

On Friday, police arrested a vendor in his house in Cikarang, West Java, for sending the bomb threat against the British Embassy.

"We are investigating whether these suspects are related to each other or have a link to an international terrorist group," Carlo said.

He said the suspects could be charged under either the Criminal Code or the Antiterror Law. (02)