Indonesian police arrest suspected owner of Bali bomb van

Indonesian police have arrested a man they suspect of owning the minivan that exploded outside the Sari Club in Bali last month, killing nearly 200 people.

The man was arrested in East Java and is being questioned in the provincial capital, Surabaya. Heru Susanto, the East Java police chief, said yesterday the suspect was believed to be linked to the terrorist attack in the beach resort of Kuta on 12 October. "He is the last owner of the L-300 [minivan]," he said.

The Mitsubishi van was left in Kuta's main street, where it exploded after a small bomb in another nightclub, Paddy's Bar, had drawn revellers on to the street. Investigators believe that two large blasts were triggered by remote control rather than by suicide bombers.

Police said they were questioning at least nine other people in connection with the attack, but said none had been formally declared a suspect. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they have been widely blamed on Jamaah Islamiya, an extremist Islamist group linked to al-Qa'ida. Its spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, was arrested a week after the attacks but refuses to answer questions.

His lawyers claim his arrest was illegal because it was based on intelligence reports and statements from witnesses in Malaysia and Singapore – inadmissible material in court.

Those in custody include two men resembling police sketches. One was arrested in Medan, on Sumatra, on Monday when he was found using fake identity papers, while the other was held in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The inquiry so far appears to have been a series of false starts. Nine people were questioned last week because they resembled sketches. All were released without charge. The alleged van owner does not look similar to anyone in the sketches, according to Indonesia's Antara news agency.