JAKARTA ~

Indonesian police are still investigating the four suspected foreign terrorists caught recently in Central Sulawesi.

“Until now we are still interrogating them and we have to do it intensively due to a language barrier,” National Police Command’s head of public information division Senior Commissioner Agus Riyanto said on Monday.

The Central Sulawesi police and police anti-terror Densus 88 squad arrested A Basyit, A Bozoghlan, A Bayram and A Zubaidah who are believed to be Turkish citizens in Marantele village in the district of Parigi Moutong, Central Sulawesi, last Saturday.

They were arrested following the arrest of three Indonesian suspects.

Riyanto said based on the initial results of investigation it was found that information they gave was different from data in the documents they carried.

“So, we are still interrogating them further. As an example one of the suspects said he is 19 years old but according to his passport he is 27 years old,” he said.

“We are still studying whether the information that they gave is true or not. And if they are really Turkish their departure from that country was not registered,” he said.

In view of that he said the police would coordinate with the immigration office and Turkish embassy to confirm the validity of their passports.

Agus said the four had also confessed as tourists who wished to enjoy a holiday in Indonesia.

He said the four entered Indonesia separately through Jakarta or Bandung and then met in Makassar before leaving for Palu and perhaps later to Poso.

“We are also investigating the possibility of their involvement (in a terrorist network in Indonesia),” he said.

Agus said the police had suspected that they planned to go to Poso to join with the Santoso group facilitated by terrorist suspect Mochtar in Poso who has so far been wanted.

“As we know Santoso has declared his participation in ISIS and so we are investigating if the persons that we have arrested are connected with it,” he said.

It is predicted the four foreign terror suspects had used fake passports.

“We suspect that they have used fake passports. They had claimed to have come from Turkey, but no record exists of their departure from that country,” said Agus Riyanto.