Taufik Edi Saputra Naiman Solehudin Samsudin Jahid Amnesty International is concerned for the safety of the six men named above, who have been taken into custody in connection with a bank robbery and two bomb explosions in Jakarta. One of them is already known to have been tortured and ill-treated in order to extract a forced confession. On 15 April 1999, a bomb exploded at a shopping centre in west Jakarta. A nearby bank was robbed shortly afterwards. Four days later a bomb exploded at Indonesia's main mosque, the Al-Istiqlal, in Jakarta.
Police claim that the bank robbery and the two bomb blasts are connected.
The six men were arrested without warrants and their houses searched without search warrants. Most, if not all, of the men are from Warung Menteng Village, Cijeruk District, Bogor, west of Jakarta. They are believed to have been arrested on the basis of the confession of a man from the same village, arrested earlier in connection with the bank robbery. Their wives have now been given access to them but they have so far been denied access to lawyers. Individuals are often arrested by police without warrants, held in custody without being charged and frequently tortured in order to obtain confessions.