Police detain man who shared a rented room with one of the Bali bombers

Police are questioning a man who allegedly shared a rented room with one of three suicide bombers on Bali before this month's deadly attack on three crowded restaurants, a senior detective said.

Other police were tightlipped about the case Tuesday, either declining to comment or denying it.

Capt. Wahyu Wim Hardjanto, the chief detective in Jember, a town in neighboring East Java province, said the man being held for questioning briefly shared a room with one of the suicide bombers in Bali's capital, Denpasar, before the Oct. 1 attack that killed 23 people.

"Three days before the bomb, he and two others returned to Jember," he said, and Bali police asked authorities to track them down. "We located one of them on Sunday, and sent him back to Bali," Hardjanto said.

Jember police chief Syafril Nursal denied anyone connected with the suicide bombers was being questioned, and the national police spokesman declined to comment, reports the AP. I.L.