JAKARTA: Indonesian police were scrambling Sunday to determine whether a man gunned down in a dramatic firefight in Central Java was in fact the one of Asia's most-wanted terrorism suspects, as reported earlier.
Local television and media reported Saturday that Noordin Muhammed Top was killed in a fierce firefight with an anti-terror police squad at a house in Beji village of Temanggung.
However, terrorism experts expressed doubts the lone man killed in the raid was Noordin, saying pictures circulating hours after the raid did not resemble police photographs previously published of the Malaysian-born terrorist.
“He’s not yet dead, in fact DNA tests prove that the body that was recovered was not of Noordin Mohammed Top,” Rohan Gunaratna, the head of the Singapore-based Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera television.
Gunaratna cited sources within the investigation.
Similar doubt came from former national intelligence agency Abudllah Hendropriyono, saying that a militant leader would have never been left alone at a hideout.
Police believe Malaysian-born Noordin masterminded the July 17 bomb attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels that killed nine people including two suicide bombers.
Identification efforts were underway at the national police hospital in Jakarta on the body of the man flown Saturday afternoon from Temanggung district, state-run Antara news agency reported.
National police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri told a press conference on Saturday that he “cannot yet confirm” whether the man killed was indeed Noordin until DNA tests were completed.
Forensic teams would compare the DNA with samples taken from Noordin's family members in Malaysia, and results could take up to two weeks, officials said.
In a separate, dramatic raid outside Jakarta on Saturday morning, police killed two suspected militants at a house believed to have been used by Noordin. Police also seized a 100-kilogram bomb, explosive materials and a minivan designed to be a car bomb.
The police chief said one of five suspects arrested on Friday, Amir Ibrahim, told police that Noordin had held a meeting to plan the assassination of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono this month to avenge the execution last year of three militants convicted of the 2002 Bali bombings.
