JAKARTA: Asian terror suspect Noordin Mohammed Top is probably still at large

in Indonesia despite reports of his death, police said today, even as the net closed around his extremist network.

Fingerprint analysis confirmed that a man killed by police special forces in a raid on a

suspected Noordin hideout on the weekend was not the Malaysian Islamist, a police source involved in the investigation told AFP.

“It’s not him. We know from his facial structure as well as his fingerprints,” the source said, requesting anonymity. “We’re continuing to track his whereabouts.”

Noordin’s death has not been formally ruled out, however, and police are publicly sticking to the line that DNA tests are required.

“Whoever the man is, it should be proved in a scientific way,” national police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said.

Photographs of the bullet- and shrapnel-riddled body dragged from the remote farmhouse in Central Java at the end of a 17-hour siege on Saturday morning do not resemble Noordin, police sources and independent experts said.