Bali bomb blast: police say van owner has confessed to helping attack nightclub

Indonesian police are holding a man they believe played a central role in the terrorist attack that killed nearly 200 people at a Bali nightclub last month.

The man, named only as Amrozi, was arrested on Tuesday in eastern Java, Indonesia's main island, which lies across a narrow strait of water from Bali.

Police said he had admitted using the L300 Mitsubishi van to help carry out the bomb attack at Kuta on 12 October. Police have said the main bomb was placed inside the minivan that was parked in front of one of the nightclubs.

The announcement marks the first major breakthough in the investigation. Da'i Bachtiar, the national police chief, said: "Amrozi was one of the main perpetrators in the Bali bombing."

Mr Bachtiar said Amrozi was one of a group of people who planned and carried out the attack. "He has disclosed many things and admitted his acts in Bali. Therefore we are pursuing his companions.

"The group has several people with a division of labour, certainly including Amrozi, who admitted going there and dividing up tasks."

Brigadier General Edward Aritonang, spokesman for a team of international investigators, said Amrozi had been flown to Bali for questioning. He said: "The investigation team is still questioning him. There are many things that have to be cross-checked and be studied thoroughly."

Amrozi was arrested at an Islamic boarding school in the town of Tenggulun, according to local television. The school's head, Dzakaria, said Amrozi had once attended a lecture there by Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of Jamaah Islamiya, a regional extremist group believed to have links with the al-Qa'ida terrorist network.

Jamaah Islamiya is widely suspected of organising the Bali blasts. Mr Bashir is in custody in a police hospital in Jakarta, where investigators have been trying to question him about bomb attacks on Indonesian churches two years ago. He has denied links with terrorists.

The breakthrough was swift and unexpected. The investigation had been on the verge of farce, with Indonesian officers and their Australian colleagues unable to agree even on the type of explosives used in the attack.

Western governments will be keen to know if Amrozi is associated with Jamaah Islamiya. Amrozi is believed to be one of a group of up to 10 bombers. His seniority has yet to be determined, but he could give police invaluable information about other members of the group and, possibly, identify the people who conceived and organised the attack. Investigators say he is already being helpful.

Dzakaria, who, like many Indonesians, only uses one name, said Amrozi was not a student at his school, but occasionally came "to conduct prayer with us". He said Amrozi worked in Malaysia during the 1990s, the era when Mr Bashir was living there in exile during the dictatorship of Indonesia's former president Suharto. It was unclear, however, whether the two men met in Malaysia.

According to one report yesterday, the terrorist attack was planned during a meeting of south-east Asian al-Qa'ida operatives in southern Thailand last January attended by members of Jamaah Islamiya. The report, which quoted Asian intelligence officials, said the meeting was led by Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesian cleric believed to be the group's operations leader.

Dozens of Indonesians have been detained, questioned and released without charge by investigators, with a number of people picked up because they resembled sketches of three suspects compiled from witness testimony. A fourth sketch was made public yesterday.

Amrozi is the first person to be formally named as a suspect, and he can expect to be questioned at length.

Some 120 foreign detectives and intelligence officers, most of them Australian, are working on the case alongside Indonesian police.