Jakarta: Indonesia will return the body of regional terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top to Malaysia, police said on Friday, following the militant leader`s death in a dramatic raid.
"The Malaysian government and Noordin Mohammed Top`s family have requested his body so he can be buried in Malaysia. We will give him back to them," national police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said.
"We will complete his (Noordin`s) DNA test today and hand the body over to the Foreign Ministry which will arrange to return it to Malaysia," he said.
Noordin, a 41-year-old Malaysian who led a violent splinter faction of the Jemaah Islamiyah radical network, was killed along with three militants at the bloody end of a nine-hour siege in a village in central Java yesterday.
"We wanted so much to catch Noordin alive but there was a firefight. We asked them to surrender but they refused. In fact, they started to shoot at us first," Soekarna said.
Soekarna said the back of Noordin`s head was shattered by an "explosion" as police tore down a wall in the rented house in which he had holed up with fellow fighters.
Noordin was also shot in the side of his body and leg, he said.
Noordin`s family in Malaysia`s southern Johor state, where he had a first wife and three children aged 10, nine and eight, said they had long anticipated his death.
Bureau Report
