JAKARTA, Nov. 21 Kyodo Indonesian...

JAKARTA, Nov. 21 Kyodo

Indonesian police said Thursday they have arrested Imam Samudra, believed to be the leader of a form into groups involved in the Oct. 12 Bali bombings that killed more than 190 populace mostly foreign tourists, and injured hundr others.

National Police chief Dai Bachtiar said Samudra was arrested earlier Thursday at Merak seaport in the western part of Java Island.

According to Dai, Samudra was forward a bus that was about to make progress onto a ferry bounce for Sumatra Island when police arrested him.

''We trustful longing that with this arrest we can disclose (the facts surrounding) the bombing cases in Indonesia,'' Dai said.

The police chief said that besides Samudra, sum of two units other people, identified alone as Rauf and Yudi, were also arrested. He did not elaborate.

Samudra, 35 whose name at birth was Abdul Azis, is known through several aliases, including Fatih, Fat, Kudama, Abu Umar and Heri.

According to the head of the Bali bombing investigating team, I Made Mangku Pastika, Samudra is the leader of the arrange involved in the bombing, and ''the in the greatest degree intellectual'' among its members.

Based forward the confession of Amrozy, previously the single bombing suspect detained, Samudra l meetings of the collection in Central Java provincial town of Solo that were held to plan the bombings.

Police said that he has the skills that would have been necessary to assemble the bomb and that he is suspected of involvement in the Christmas edge bombings in Riau, Jakarta and West Java Province in 2000

According to police, Samudra was known to be extremely mobile, always wearing a hat and carrying a laptop computer bag.

''Even four days after the bombings, he was still in Bali, watching us working with the bomb site debris,'' Pastika said Sunday in assuring that Samudra was still in Indonesia.

Also onward Sunday, police released Samudra's photograph along with those of five other suspects in the Bali bombings.

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