July 21, 2009 23:31 PM

Two Of Dead In Jakarta Hotel Blasts Identified As Dutch Couple

By Mohd Nasir Yusoff

JAKARTA, July 21 (Bernama) -- Indonesian police Tuesday confirmed that two of the nine people killed in the bomb blasts at two hotels here on Friday were a Dutch man and his wife.

Police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said there was no information on their identities except for the name Keaning based on the missing persons report made by the Dutch embassy here.

With the two bodies identified as those of a Dutch couple, two other unidentified bodies were believed to be those of the suspected suicide bombers who set off the blasts at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, he said.

Soekarna said police were continuing with their investigation and had yet to link any group, whether it be the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) or a splinter group led by explosive expert Noordin Mat Top, or any other individual to the incident in which 53 people were also injured.

"There are indications that any of them could have been involved but the problem is we do not have clear evidence as yet," he told a news conference here.

Soekarna advised the people and the media not to speculate on the issue or to question the police investigation techniques.

Nevertheless, he said police had checked on two families, one in Temanggung, Central Java, and another in Cerebon, West Java, over the blasts.

The media had reported that the parents of a man identified by the initial "N" had been subjected to a DNA test while the other family was that of a man named Ibrahim, an employee of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, who had gone missing following the incident.

-- BERNAMA

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