Viktor Mocodompis (left) lays a wreath upon the grave of his son, Evert, during his funeral in Jakarta. -- PHOTO: AFP
JAKARTA - THE first of the Jakarta hotel bombings' seven victims was buried on Monday - just days after he again became a father.
The wife of 38-year-old Evert Mocodompis could not attend his funeral because she gave birth to their second child the day before he was killed, local media reported.
He died while working in the restaurant of the J.W. Marriott hotel on Friday. Family and friends sang hymns and tossed flowers on his grave.
Police continued to piece together bomb fragments, body parts and other clues gathered from the Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton, which was bombed within minutes of Friday's first blast. Police have said explosive material recovered at the hotels is 'identical' to that used by the Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah in earlier attacks.
An unexploded bomb left in a room of the Marriott resembled devices used in attacks on Bali and one found in a recent raid against the network on an Islamic boarding school in Central Java, national police spokesman told a news conference Sunday.
The culprits in Friday's attacks that killed seven and wounded 50 are believed to have belonged to Jemaah Islamiyah 'because there are similarities in the bombs used,' Maj. Gen. Nanan Sukarna said.
The decapitated bodies of the two alleged suicide bombers were also recovered at the scenes, police said. Anti-terrorism police were hunting for Noordin Mohammad Top, a fugitive Malaysian who heads a particularly violent offshoot of the network and has been linked to four major strikes in Indonesia since 2002.
The twin suicide bombings came four years after the last serious terrorist attack in Indonesia and unleashed a new wave of anxiety in the world's largest Muslim-majority country. After years of sectarian violence and annual terrorist strikes, the nation of 235 million had been enjoying a period of stability.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was re-elected to a second term earlier this month, partly on the strength of government efforts to fight terrorism.
'I am shocked by these bombings,' Razif Harahap, a 45-year-old graduate student, said in Jakarta on Sunday. 'The same people who carried out these attacks could launch another one, because the mastermind is still at large.' Investigators are trying to identify the two bombers, one of whom is believed to be Indonesian. Knowing who they are could help determine if they had links to Noordin. -- AP
