The Bali Brimob officer attacked at an upscale resort in Jimbaran on Tuesday was assaulted by three people, who appear to be foreigners, CCTV footage has come to suggest.
Brigadier Bagus Suda Suwarna, part of Bali Police’s elite Mobile Brigade (Brimob) unit, was found unconscious on the grounds of the expansive Ayana Resort in a motorcycle parking garage on Tuesday morning, with his AK-101 rifle missing.
Police had initially told reporters they did not get the attack on CCTV, but it appears further analysis of security recordings has pointed to who the attackers could be.
“From the results of the CCTV footage, there were three people. Two people driving motorbikes, one riding as a passenger,” National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Setyo Wasisto told reporters in South Jakarta on Wednesday.
One of the alleged perpetrators has been profiled from the footage, says the spokesman.
“One of them is already being monitored for. We are after his physical characteristics. Hopefully he will be caught in the near future,” Wasisto said.
The suspects in the footage do not appear to be Indonesian, Tribun Bali is reporting.
While no physical descriptives were given about the suspects’ appearance, news outlets routinely mean ‘not Asian’ when specifying foreigners.
Suwarna, who was hospitalized after being assaulted, is said to be in stable condition but unable to remember any details of the incident.
The Brimob officer is understood to have been assigned to conduct security at the 90-hectare Ayana Resort complex. He had taken a lunch break around 11am and was attacked coming back around 11:20am. A hotel security guard found Suwarna having vomited blood, battered and knocked out.
Police still cannot say definitively whether or not the attack on the Brimob officer was an act of terror targeting law enforcement.
“We have not been able to confirm. For that, we would need backup data with valid facts, to declare this an act of terror. It cannot yet be ascertained if there is a terror link, our investigation is still trying to seek as much information as possible from the scene.”
Law enforcement in Indonesia has become increasingly popular targets for terrorists in recent years, the latest, a deadly suicide bombing in Jakarta at a busy bus terminal killing three policemen in May 2017.
Since Tuesday’s incident, police say they have secured the border, especially clamping down at the Port of Gilimanuk in West Bali with enhanced security checks. The port is the main crossing point between Bali and Java.
Meanwhile, Ayana says the hotel is cooperating closely with police.
“It is the first occurrence of its kind to take place in close proximity of the resort, as a result both AYANA and the local police are treating the incident with the severity in which it deserves,” the resort said in a statement, issued to Coconuts Bali.
Following Suwarna’s assault a police line was set up at the scene and forensics investigators have been combing over the garage, looking for any trace of evidence.
When asked further about how long the police line would be set up at the hotel, Ayana PR & Marketing director, Lindsay Kinniburgh, told Coconuts Bali that the hotel was not able to reveal such sensitive information.
“Due to the incident still being under police investigation we cannot offer further details at this time,” Kinniburgh said.
