ATTEMPT ON LIFE OF SOEKARNO

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28573, 30 April 1958, Page 11

ATTEMPT ON LIFE OF SOEKARNO

Three Youths On Trial (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright} NEW YORK, April 28. Jusuf Ismail, a young schoolteacher, told a military court at Jakarta today that the Indonesian Army’s former Acting Chief of Staff, Colonel Zulkifli Lubis, was the “master mind” behind the attempt to kill President Soekarno on November 30 last year, the American Associated Press has reported from the Indonesian capital. Ismail, aged 24, told the Court trying him and three others that Colonel Lubis had outlined the plot during a secret meeting of an anti-Communist Moslem organisation in the suburbs of Jakarta two days before the unsuccessful assassination attempt. He said that the actual bomb throwing, which killed nine persons and injured 150 more at an elementary school, came with little preparation. A few hours before the incident, Ismail said, the conspirators had been summoned to the home of Saleh Ibrahim, the organisation’s leader, and told that the President would be visiting a school where his two children were students. He said he had tossed one of hip two grenades at Dr. Soekarno and then ran home, quivering with fright. Soldiers later tracked him down at Ibrahim’s house, but he said he had confessed only after repeated beatings with ' rifle butts. At this time the courtroom broke into an uproar, the Ameri- ! can Associated Press said. 8 The news agency said Colonel • Lubis succeeded in toppling the Government with Dr. Ali Sastroamidjojo as Prime Minister in • 1955, when he opposed Dr. Ali’s i choice for Army Chief of Staff. In 1956 Colonel Lubis staged ’ an abortive coup and has since ’ been a fugitive, but one who moved more or less with immunity about the country. The trial of Ismail and the three other youths opened today, the ‘ American Associated Press said. 5 They are the first of some 80 ■ persons accused in connexion I with the attempt on Dr. Soe- ■ karno’s life J On trial with Ismail are Tasrif bin Husein, aged 24, Saadon bin I Mohammed, aged 18, and Mo- ■ hammed bin Abubakar, aged 22.