bali drugs and death penalty, page-47

Godfather offered $1m bribe: police
By Rob Taylor in Jakarta
April 19, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse


INDONESIAN police today alleged that the 21-year-old Sydneysider at the centre of Bali's heroin bust offered them a $1 million bribe after they arrested him and eight other Australians on Sunday night.
Suspect Andrew Chan denied the claim and scoffed at accusations that he is the "Godfather" of a drug smuggling ring.

The head of the Bali's police anti-drugs squad, Colonel Bambang Sugiarto, told AAP that Chan had been a careful and calculated planner who had used disguises to evade arrest several times.

Sugiarto said Chan worked "very, very neatly" and offered police investigators a $1 million bribe to let him go.

"I only assumed he was joking," he said.

"We didn't pay much attention to it. We didn't respond to it. Maybe he was just testing us."

Chan was paraded before reporters at Denpasar police headquarters today when he maintained his innocence and angrily denied the claims made against him.

"No I didn't," he said after he led out of an office where he was fingerprinted.

Earlier, he angrily denied being a drug boss.

"I think that's just full of shit," Andrew Chan said when reporters asked him to comment on the claims being made again him.

"Do you think I'm the Godfather in this? Do I look the Godfather? They didn't even find anything on me."

Chan was reading a newspaper aboard a Sydney-bound Australian Airlines flight when Indonesian police arrested him at Bali Airport on Sunday night when suspects were arrested with heroin.

He had no drugs on him.

Chan said he knew six of the other eight Australians arrested, but did not know any of them were planning on transporting drugs back to Sydney.

But the head of the undercover drugs team which watched over him for several days before the weekend wave off arrests, deputy inspector Nyoman Gatra, accused Chan of being a slick operator.

Gatra had watched Chan go out of his hotel every evening to meet with other alleged gang members for around 15 minutes.

Sugiarto said officers had tried to detain Chan on a least two occasions before his arrest onboard the aircraft.

"We followed him, but then he disappeared, because he always changes his outfit," he told AAP.

"He enters a room with a group of people, but then leaves one by one. Suddenly he's gone."

Gatra said Chan usually disguised himself with a red or yellow shirt and a series of baseball caps.

He also tried to distance himself from the other gang members.

Chan's lawyer Mohammad Rifan said it was still unclear what charges his client would face.

He said Chan would be questioned tomorrow with the other eight, and all were fingerprinted and photographed today.

Rifan said the four people detained at the hotel would likely be charged under different offences carrying a maximum 10-year jail term.

Australia's vice-consul in Bali Brian Diamond said all nine had now found lawyers, but had made no calls home as yet. Some were getting minor medical treatment.

"They are obviously under stress as you would be. None of them are suffering any major illnesses," Diamond said.