Gina 'comes home' to final resting place<\/p>\n
By K. Basrie<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): She finally came home.<\/p>\n
The body of Gina Sutan Aswar, whose murder has stolen
\nnewspaper headlines for the past week, was flown home to Jakarta
\nfrom Los Angeles yesterday, more than 25 months after she was
\nreported missing by her family in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
For the family, it was a tearful homecoming. But home she
\ncame, to her final resting place.<\/p>\n
It was her father, 70-year old retired Air Force colonel Sutan
\nAswar, who showed most composure, fighting back his tears as the
\ncoffin containing Gina's remains was brought to his home on Jl.
\nCipinang Cempedak II in East Jakarta.<\/p>\n
The other members of the family succumbed to hysterical cries.<\/p>\n
"Gina, what happened to you, honey? What's up, darling?" cried
\none of her sisters, while the others were crying her name out,
\nagain and again.<\/p>\n
The youngest daughter of Sutan Aswar and known by friends as
\nbright and vibrant, Gina was identified by Los Angeles police in
\nDecember, 1994, as one of the three victims whose decomposed
\nbodies they had found in a storage locker in the city two months
\nearlier.<\/p>\n
Events have recently taken a new twist with the main suspect,
\nHarnoko Dewanto, alias Oki, now in the custody of Jakarta police.
\nLos Angeles police have named him as the main suspect in their
\ninvestigation of the murder of Gina and the other two victims,
\none of whom is Oki's own brother. The third victim has been
\nidentified as a laundry businessman of Indian origins.<\/p>\n
Police are holding 30-year old Oki on charges of falsifying a
\npassport, but they have not ruled out investigating him in
\nconnection with the triple murder.<\/p>\n
Gina had been missing since Nov. 1, 1992, after she boarded a
\nLos Angeles-bound plane in Paris, where she had been vacationing
\nat her sister's. Nothing had been heard of her since then, until
\nthe Los Angeles Police Department made its announcement last
\nDecember.<\/p>\n
Her elder brother, Syaiful Aswar, was the one sent to pick up
\nher remains. They arrived aboard a Garuda Indonesia plane at
\nSoekarno-Hatta airport just before 11 a.m. yesterday.<\/p>\n
The coffin was immediately driven to the family home in
\nCipinang, where her family, relatives and friends were waiting.<\/p>\n
The cloudy day and light drizzle accentuated the somber
\natmosphere.<\/p>\n
After Friday prayers, and a prayers at the home, the body was
\ntaken to the Jeruk Purut cemetery in South Jakarta to be buried.<\/p>\n
By this time, her family's anguished cries had petered out, as
\nthey began to accept the fate that had befallen their daughter.
\nAtitje, one of her sisters, collapsed after the burial.<\/p>\n
All the others were silent as they scattered flower petals
\nover the mound.<\/p>\n
Just as everyone was getting ready to leave, there was a last
\nminute hitch as the family realized that the coffin had been
\nburied the wrong way. Islam requires that coffins should face in
\nthe direction of the Ka'bah, the holy Moslem shrine in Mecca,
\nSaudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
They had to dig up the coffin and bury it again.<\/p>\n
There were dignitaries present at the burial ceremony,
\nincluding former Air Force Chief of Staff Ashadi Tjahyadi, former
\nNational Police chief Awaluddin Djamin, Consulate General to Los
\nAngeles R. Sudjono Haridadi and President Soeharto's daughter,
\nSiti Hutami.<\/p>\n
Gina's family is now pressing the Indonesian police to pursue
\nthe murder allegation. They were no longer insisting, as they had
\nearlier, that Oki be sent to Los Angeles to face murder charges
\nthere.<\/p>\n
Syaiful Aswar, Gina's brother, said the family was willing to
\nprovide various documents about her death and of that of the
\nother two victims.<\/p>\n
Their main concern was that justice be done, be it here or in
\nLos Angeles, he said.<\/p>\n
"If our police insist that Oki should be tried here, that's
\nfine with us," Syaiful told The Jakarta Post.<\/p>\n
Syaiful, who has traveled to Los Angeles several times during
\nthe last two years in search of his sister, said two Los Angeles
\npolice detectives would be coming to Jakarta soon to assist the
\ninvestigation.<\/p>\n
The National Police have ruled out extraditing Oki to the
\nUnited States because there is no extradition treaty between the
\ntwo countries. Meanwhile, the Attorney General's Office has
\nconfirmed that the law allows an Indonesian court to try one of
\nits own citizens for crimes alleged to have been committed
\nabroad.<\/p>\n
Awaluddin Djamin, a retired police general who was present at
\nthe funeral yesterday, warned that there would be more difficult
\ninherent to conduct the trial here.<\/p>\n
"It would mean that the whole investigation process, including
\nthe forensic work, would have to start all over again," he said.<\/p>\n
He noted that even in the absence of an extradition treaty,
\nLos Angeles police could still request that Oki be brought to the
\nUnited States.<\/p>\n
"This is a unique case," he said.<\/p>\n
Tisnaya I. Kartakusuma, a relative and lawyer for the family,
\ntold the Post that Jakarta police had asked to study Gina's
\nremains at their forensic laboratory here.<\/p>\n
"But we rejected their request because the forensic work has
\nalready been done by the American police," he said.<\/p>",
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