Indonesian police 'release trio'
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesian police have released a man and his wife they had detained on suspicion of possible involvement in the Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta last week, according to an Australia media report Friday.
They also released a third person whose arrest they had not disclosed, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
It said the police planned to keep the trio under surveillance.
The married couple, from the provincial capital of Surabaya in East Java, were among six or seven people picked up by Indonesian police for questioning over the September 9 mini-truck blast outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta that killed at least nine and wounded 182.
A National Police spokesman said Friday six people had been picked up in East Java, Reuters news agency reported.
"I checked with the East Java police officials and there are six (detained). They are related to a terror case," the spokesman told Reuters.
"But they are not linked to the bombing at the embassy," he added, without elaborating.
Some media, quoting sources in the police, said one man had been arrested in Jakarta in relation to the embassy blast but the spokesman dismissed those reports.
"As for the bombing, so far we have not made any arrest."
Suyitno Landung, head of the police criminal investigation department, also dismissed the news reports, telling Reuters: "No one is being arrested."
Police have said they suspect the embassy attack was masterminded by bombmaker Azahari Husin, a senior Malaysian member of Jemaah Islamiya, a militant group seen as the regional arm of al Qaeda.
On Thursday, police said they were checking blood samples taken from the families of Hasan and Jabir, two East Java men who are suicide suspects in the bombing.
Police investigators say they need up to 10 days to identify tissue fragments found at the blast site.
"We are still checking the tissue fragments and it could take us 7 to 10 days," head of the police forensic laboratory, Brig.-Gen. Dudon Setiaputra told Antara news agency on Thursday.
Indonesia has offered cash rewards of more than $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of Azahari Husin and another Malaysian figure in Jemaah Islamiya wanted over the bombing, Noordin Mohammed Top.
Indonesia blames Jemaah Islamiya for other attacks, including the 2002 bombing of nightclubs on Bali island that killed 202 people and one on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta last year that killed 12.
On Thursday, the Central Jakarta District Court sentenced an accomplice in the Marriott bombing to 12 years in jail. He is 24-year-old Ismail, also known as M. Ikhwan, Agus and Ari Kumala.
