Indonesian police said on Thursday the owner of a minivan used in last month's car-bomb attack in Bali had admitted being part of the group that carried out the atrocity and helped authorities push forward the investigation. National police chief Da'i Bachtiar named the car owner as Amrozi, and said he was suspected of playing a key role in the bombings which killed at least 184 people, most of them foreign revelers.

Asked by reporters if Amrozi had parked the explosives-laden minivan in front of a packed nightclub, Bachtiar said:

"The group has several people with a division of labor, certainly including Amrozi, who admitted going there and dividing up tasks,"

"We have gathered lots of information from him but we still have to cross-check it with other evidence," Bachtiar said.
Police had announced the capture of the minivan owner in East Java earlier in the week. He was moved to Bali late on Wednesday.

He is the first suspect named over the three blasts that rocked Bali. The car-bomb was by far the biggest of the three.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blasts but speculation has centered on Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian Islamist organization which intelligence agencies say has planned attacks throughout the region, and which has been linked to al Qaeda.

Abu Bakar Ba'shir, the alleged spiritual leader of the group, is under police detention now suspected of involvement in Christmas Eve bombings in 2000 and an assassination plot against President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Police have not linked Bashir to the Bali blasts.

Bachtiar said any leads from the Bali investigation pointing to Bashir "would be cross-checked."

Earlier in the day Indonesian police had released a sketch of a fourth suspect in the blast, after releasing three sketches last week of Indonesian men they said might be perpetrators or planners of the attack.

"According to our witnesses, he is thought to have a very close connection to the case. His status is a suspect," deputy National Police spokesman Edward Aritonang told reporters at a news conference on the resort island.

The man in the latest sketch had Indonesian features but police gave no more details.

Police have said they believe the group responsible for the attacks consisted of up to 10 members.

PHOTO CAPTION

A sketch released by Indonesian police in Denpasar, Nov. 7, 2002, of another suspect wanted in connection to the Bali bomb blasts. Indonesian police on Thursday released the sketch of a fourth possible suspect involved in the last month's devastating bomb blast on Bali island that killed more than 180 people. (Stringer/Indonesia/Reuters)