JAKARTA (JP): National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on
Saturday that the order to arrest Laskar Jihad commander Jafar
Umar Thalib was based on legal grounds because the latter had been
suspected for quite some time of being involved in theMaluku
conflicts, reports said.
Speaking in Surabaya, the capital of East Java, Da'i said that
the order to arrest Jafar was not an order from the chief of
police.
"The law does not recognize the order of a superior. It
only recognizes the order of the law, which means that if
investigators think that they have enough evidence to declare a
person a suspect, they will do so based on due process of the
law," Da'i said as quoted by Antara.
Da'i, accompanied by East Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Sutanto
in an event titled "Police are Children's Good Friends",
reiterated that based on the analysis and reports on the field,
"Jafar Umar Thalib is connected to various things that
happened in Ambon (capital of Maluku)".
Da'i further stressed that coordination between allauthorities
both in the central and provincial administrations was essential
to resolve conflict in Maluku province. (edt)
