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Indonesian police arrest alleged Bali bomb plotter

AFP - Tuesday, May 6

JAKARTA (AFP) - - Indonesian police said on Monday they had arrested a key member of radical Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) who allegedly helped plot a suicide bombing on the resort island of Bali in 2005.

A police spokesman said Faiz Fauzan, 28, who was paraded before the media at a press conference, was a close aide to the group's fugitive alleged terror mastermind, Malaysian national Noordin Muhammad Top.

Hewas also an associate of Azahari Husin, another Malaysian national believed to have helped Noordin plan the suicide bombings which killed some 200 people, mostly tourists, in Bali in 2002, the spokesman said.

Azahari was shot dead during a police raid on his hideout in Batu, East Java, in November 2005.

"The accused is suspected of involvement in the planning of the second Bali bombings and among others had met twice with Salik Firdaus, one of the suicide bombers," said the spokesman, Abubakar Nataprawira.

"He also met with Azahari in June 2005, before the second Bali bombings."

Twenty people were killed in the 2005 suicide bombing of a restaurant area on Bali.

"Based on our preliminary investigations... the suspect is a member of JI who was sworn in in June 1999 and began to join the group of Noordin Top in 2004," Nataprawira said.

Monday's press conference was the first public acknowledgement of the arrest of Fauzan, who is also known as Parmin. Police said he was detained at his home in Central Java on April 22.

Handcuffed and wearing a white shirt, he told reporters he was an associate of Noordin, but denied any involvement in the 2005 attack.

"I did once join Noordin Top's group, from end of April 2005 to October 2005," he said.

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