Author: Ellen Nakashima
Publication: The Washington Post
Date: January 8, 2003
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24703-2003Jan7.html
In difficult moments, I Made Pastika
hikes briskly up a mint-green mountain toward a cool, silent place above
the clouds. At the summit, after a two- hour climb, the Indonesian investigator
in charge of solving the worst case of international terrorism since Sept.
11, 2001, sits cross- legged before an ornate, centuries- old temple carved
of white stone, the highest Hindu temple in Bali.
And then he prays.
"I go there every time that I feel
I need spiritual support, every time I'm facing a serious job," the Bali
native said in a cell phone interview from the mountainside. "It gives
me strength."
On Nov. 21, a few days after his
trip to the temple, his men nabbed an alleged ringleader in the deadly
Oct. 12 bombings on this resort island, which killed more than 190 people,
most of them tourists. The suspect, Imam Sumudra, an Indonesian computer
expert, was about to get on a ferry from Java to a nearby island.
A disarmingly direct official, Pastika
blends respect for Western investigative techniques with reverence for
his Eastern spiritual roots. The gains made in his investigation so far
have helped polish the image of a police force long criticized for corruption
and ineptitude, and of Indonesia itself, which has been accused of lagging
in the global war on terrorism.
His efforts have won him a measure
of acclaim. With prosecutors preparing to charge the first suspects --
15 people have been arrested in connection with the case -- Pastika has
been praised by Indonesian civic leaders as well as foreign diplomats and
human rights activists. Australia's deputy ambassador, Neil Mules, said
Pastika is "an example of the best that Indonesia has to offer." Of those
killed by the two blasts on Bali, 88 were Australians.
Pastika, a trim man with a crew
cut and a sober face that lights up when he smiles, has declined to leap
beyond the evidence to larger conclusions about who carried out the bombing
or why. That, he said, only half-jokingly, he leaves to the reporters.
He said he works "from the ground up." Piece by piece -- a cell phone fragment
here, a fingerprint from a motorbike there -- the parts will fit together
and form a larger picture, he said.
His team, for example, working from
bits of metal found at the blast site, including fragments on nearby building
roofs, recovered part of the chassis from the Mitsubishi van used to blow
up the Sari nightclub. Though the bombers had attempted to alter the chassis
number, investigators found another registration number hidden by a metal
plate that survived the blast. Mitsubishi experts were summoned from Japan.
Australian Federal Police forensics experts also assisted. Through that
registration number, the Indonesian police were able to trace the van through
six sales to its last owner, a mechanic named Amrozi, who became their
first big arrest.
On the day the police discovered
the chassis number, Pastika had gone to pray at the Balinese Hindus' "mother
temple," Besakih. "I asked if I can solve the case as soon as possible
because all the world is waiting," he explained later. "When I just got
back from the temple, one of our men had gotten the number."
Reconstruction, a crime-solving
technique borrowed from the West, has been a pivotal part of the probe.
Pastika's team used it to help understand how the plot unfolded, to highlight
incongruities and symmetries among suspects' confessions and to help buttress
the prosecutors' case in court. Last month, for instance, police brought
three suspects, including Samudra, to Amrozi's house in an East Java village,
and eight more to a house in central Java, to reenact their roles and help
police verify that the plotters held two meetings last summer to plan the
attack.
Pastika speaks six languages and
has taken police courses in Japan, Australia and Britain. His first significant
international case was in November 2000, when three employees of the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees in western Timor were killed. He arrested
six local militia members, who were tried and convicted in Jakarta, the
capital.
But he is best known in Indonesia
for leading the investigation into the 2001 killing of Theys Eluay, a separatist
leader in the eastern province of Papua, and concluding that military members
were responsible. A trial of seven suspects in that case began last week.
Until he took over the Bali nightclub
probe, he also led the police inquiry into the Aug. 31 killing of two Americans
and one Indonesian at the Freeport- McMoRan gold and copper mine in Papua.
The preliminary findings indicated that soldiers very likely were responsible,
according to the police report. The military has denied involvement, and
the case is under investigation.
Born 51 years ago in North Bali,
Pastika grew up in a family of modest means headed by a schoolteacher father.
Too poor to pay college tuition, he enrolled in the police academy and
graduated first in his class in 1974. His first salary was $100 a month
and 11 pounds of rice. Pastika rose steadily through the ranks. In 1989
he served as U.N. police special commander in charge of "black and colored
areas" during elections in the southern African country of Namibia, at
a time when murder, blackmail and intimidation abounded, he said.
His experience, he noted, taught
him that respect for human rights was fundamental to a professional investigation.
Shortly after the Bali bombings, President Megawati Sukarnoputri announced
two emergency decrees to enable security officials to detain suspects without
charge for up to six months. Pastika asserted that the measures must not
trump human rights.
"We may have preliminary evidence,
but we have to consider also that we are not holding anyone against human
rights," he said in an interview at a hotel here. "That will damage our
credibility with the people."
Pastika, who now also serves as
deputy chief of the national police Criminal Investigation Department,
said he understood the pressure to solve the Bali case. "But it doesn't
mean we have to go in a hurry," he said. "We must work professionally."
Pastika's traditional beliefs enriched
his performance, observed Gen. Rusdihardjo, a retired national police chief
and a former criminal investigation chief. "Most Balinese officers, because
they are Hindus and they believe in karma -- if we spread good seeds, we
can grow good fruits -- they are more honest," Rusdihardjo said.
Pastika is direct, too, about how
faith should be practiced.
When asked if a reporter could accompany
him on his next hike to the mountain temple, he politely demurred. "You
have to believe," he said, "or it is difficult."
