The Jakarta Post, August 10, 2004
Hoaxers 'will face terror charges'
Evi Mariani, Jakarta
Four bomb threats in Jakarta over the weekend have made the police take the issue
seriously, with Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani promising to deal harshly
with perpetrators of bomb hoaxes.
"We're still searching for the callers. Should we catch them, we shall charge them
under the antiterrorism law for spreading terror among the public," he said on Monday.
Firman said his officers had identified some of the callers' numbers via the caller ID
facility, but most were from mobile phone prepaid card numbers.
"It's not easy to track down such callers because anybody can buy a prepaid card
and then throw it away later," he said.
Prepaid cards for cellular phones are sold freely and customers are neither required to
fill in a form nor submit a copy of their ID card. Many cellular phone operators are
currently competing to offer low-priced prepaid cards, starting from around Rp 20,000
(US$2.18).
However, Firman said, one of the callers used a fixed-line number that, according to
state telecommunications company PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), was
registered under the name of a notary in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan.
At 11 p.m. on Sunday, Jakarta Police Headquarters received three bomb threats from
unidentified men on its emergency hotline number 112.
The telephone operators, Second Brig. Irma and Second Brig. Vita, immediately
contacted officers on duty, who went in search of the bombs with two police antiterror
units and the bomb squad.
It took them seven hours before they declared the headquarters safe at 6 a.m.
Earlier on Sunday, at around 9:30 a.m., Plaza Bank Mandiri, Jl. Gatot Subroto, South
Jakarta, received a telephoned bomb threat.
A police report said an employee working at the building received a text message on
her mobile phone, saying there was a bomb planted in the building.
After hours of searching, the threat proved to be false.
On Friday, a telephone operator on the seventh floor of Plaza Bapindo, Jl. Sudirman,
South Jakarta, received bomb threats at 9:30 a.m. The bomb squad did not find
anything suspicious after hours of searching.
At 11:50 a.m. on the same day, an employee of PT Delta Grande, on the fourth floor
of Wisma Metropolitan I, Jl. Sudirman, Central Jakarta, also took a bomb threat call.
At 2:15 p.m., the bomb squad declared the building safe.
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