1995 no easier on police than 1994

1995 no easier on police than 1994

By K. Basrie

JAKARTA (JP): This year was no easier than 1994 on the police,
who had to deal with whole series of crimes and a backlog of
unsolved crimes left over from as far back as 1993.

This year's crime story opened with a bizarre triple murder of
two Indonesians and an Indian businessman in Los Angeles, the
United States. This story made headlines here when Los Angeles
and Jakarta police agreed the prime suspect was Harnoko
Dewantono, alias Oki, a 30-year-old Indonesian who had been
living in California before returning to Indonesia.

Oki was initially arrested at his family's house in Central
Jakarta on Jan. 6, 1995 for passport forgery.

He is currently serving time at Cipinang penitentiary after
having been found guilty by a court of law of counterfeiting a
number of passports.

City police have promised to bring Oki to court on charges of
murdering his younger brother, Eri Tri Harto Darmawan, 26, his
former girl friend, Gina Sutan Aswar, 30, and his Indian business
partner, Suresh Mirchandani, 45.

Police reports that the Indonesians were beaten to death and
that the Indian was shot to death in 1991 and 1992.

Los Angeles police discovered the decaying corpses of the
three victims in a storage locker on Aug. 10, 1993. It took them
four months to discover the identities of the deceased, which
subsequently led the police to believe that Oki may have killed
them.

Whether Oki will ever stand trial for murder on Indonesia soil
remains in doubt because the Los Angeles police, who seem
determined to try Oki in the United States, hold the bulk of
evidence.

No one knows where Oki will stand trial for murder, or when.

On March 6, the police were shaken by the brutal beating and
death of Police First Lieutenant Budi Prasetyo Utomo, 29. He was
attacked by eight street hoodlums on an entry ramp at the Blok M
shopping center in South Jakarta.

Budi was beaten and then stabbed by one of the drunken thugs,
while his companion, Capt. Arman Depari, was beaten, his face
severely bruised.

Mario Taihutu, the thug who was believed to have stabbed Budi,
was shot to death by the police for "resisting arrest".

A few days later, another suspect was found dead in jail.
Police said he died of a serious disease.

The other suspects, found guilty in a court trial of attacking
the officers, are now serving jail terms ranging from four years
to five years.

The killing of Budi led to a massive operation against street
hoodlums, who are known locally as preman or gali.

Hundreds of preman were netted and required to take a short
military-like course, at which they could learn certain skills,
such as automobile repair, in order to help them earn an honest
living.

On July 14, Maj. Noenang Kohar became the second police
officer killed on the streets this year.

Noenang, head of the drugs subdivision at city police
headquarters, was stabbed to death by a teacher in East Jakarta
after a heated quarrel. The teacher, Baskoni Wahab, was sentenced
to fours in prison last Tuesday.

Jakarta and the surrounding areas of Bogor, Tangerang and
Bekasi were then jolted by a gang rape and robbery. Eleven men
robbed the home of Acan, a potato farmer, and raped his wife and
two young daughters on July 24 in a small village in Bekasi, 30
kilometers south of here.

October inscribed two more tragedies on the pages of this
year's crime story, with the killing of the wife of Rohadi, a
school teacher, and three of their children at Bambu Apus in East
Jakarta on Oct. 2 and the rape and killing of a young woman at a
five-star hotel in Central Jakarta on Oct. 16.

The motive for the Oct. 2 massacre? The suspect says Rohadi's
family had repeatedly destroyed the cassava plants he was growing
on his plot of land adjacent to the family's home.

The rape and murder of the young Indonesian woman, identified
as Wati, 26, at a hotel here on Oct. 16 also made headlines in
several newspapers.

Only about six hours after the murder, the police arrested
Charanjit Dadwal, a Malaysian businessman of Indian origin. The
hotel management had reported the killing immediately.

The above were not the only killings taking place in Jakarta
this year. There were several others, involving prostitutes and
thugs in East, Central and South Jakarta, which did not receive
much attention from the public.

And most recently, on Dec. 16, Jakartans were shaken out of
their preoccupation with the coming holidays by the killing of a
taxi driver in Setiabudi, South Jakarta.

The suspect, who hails from Lamongan, East Java, admitted to
police that he was upset upon receiving news that his mother was
ill. The cleaning service firm worker said he had no money to
return to his hometown to see how she was doing.

Another killing, which made City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Dibyo
Widodo shake with rage, was the shooting of a gambling den
operator in Ciracas, East Jakarta, last Saturday. The alleged
killer is a policemen who was reportedly upset when the victim
refused to give him the money he asked for.

Remarkable steps

The continued problem of scarcity of personnel and funds
didn't stop the Greater Jakarta Metropolitan Police from
recording a series of monumental achievements in 1995.

Their astounding success in adopting new methods to solve and
curb crimes deserves respect and praise.

In 1995, police detectives started using the most up to date
scientific investigation methods.

Unlike in previous years, today's police focus their crime
solving work on blood stains, fingerprints, ballistics and other
forensic data.

The arrest of the suspects in the gang rape and robbery of
Acan's family, and the killing of Rohadi's family and the recent
alleged rape and killing of the young woman in a hotel by a
Malaysian businessman are examples of the results of this kind of
approach to solving crimes.

"Suspects' confessions are no longer a must as we develop the
academic methods," Dibyo once said.

President Soeharto presented a rare award to the city police
for their remarkable work in solving the gang rape and robbery
case.

The establishment this year of a special team, locally called
Unit Reaksi Cepat (URC) is as another step forward. The URC team
members are the first officers to arrive at the scene of a crime.
They are trained and required to arrive at the scene of a crime
as soon as possible and to secure any evidence they can find.

Courses have also been given to junior detectives on how to
handle the scene of a crime properly to help find and preserve
key evidence.

The city police have also started to develop an integrated
security area system, through which security guards and other
civilians help monitor the crime situation.

A new badge, similar to those used by American police, is now
being used by city detectives to identify themselves when on
duty.

Most of the steps taken by the Jakarta police have been
followed by regional police.

"We'll never stop working and developing things that we
believe can help improve our service for the sake of the public,"
said City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Dibyo Widodo.

Unsolved cases

Even though they have solved several important cases quickly,
the Jakarta police still have a heavy backlog of unsolved cases
to keep them busy.

The officers say they are still investigating those cases,
hoping for breakthroughs or new evidence.

"We never intend to close any of the cases," Dibyo said.

The problem is, he joked, the police are not required to
report on any advances in their investigations to the press.

However, a reliable police source told The Jakarta Post
recently that at least three of the unsolved cases had been
closed.

These include the killing of 23-year-old servant Djasman in
September, 1993, the mysterious death of a young businessman at
the residence of actress Ria Irawan in January last year and the
killing of the prominent former convict Sembiring, a noted figure
in the city's debt collector circles, in August last year.

Dibyo has denied that any of the unsolved cases have been
erased from the police work list due to a lack of evidence, or
poor groundwork by the detectives who initially investigated the
cases.

Other unsolved cases include the killing of a six-year-old
girl, Levina Dwisy, whose body was found in Ancol, North Jakarta,
one early morning in March last year. The police claimed to have
clues, but the investigation has not yet been completed.

Investigations also continue into the whereabouts of the
killer of six members of the Hutagalung in Bekasi in January last
year. And efforts are still being made to determine the ring
leader of the killing of entertainment businessman Nyo Beng Seng,
who was brutally stabbed in April last year at his home in North
Jakarta. Police are also still trying to shed some light on the
mysterious death of Themanto, 19, a new recruit of the student
regiment at the privately-owned Tarumanegara University, early
this year in West Jakarta and the killing of a physician whose
body was found in a bathroom at the Hero Green Garden supermarket
in Kedoya, West Jakarta, on May 26 this year.

"We pledge to keep on hunting all the suspects to settle the
debt that we owe," said National Police Chief Gen. Banurusman
Astrosemitro.

Dibyo, who replaced Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto in late
January this year, also pledged the same things.

Although the crimes occurred before Dibyo took office as the
city police "boss", people hope his skill and discipline will
help his subordinates to "pay the debts".

If he can do it, he might get the chance to be the next
national police chief to replace Banurusman.

Police have also waged an unending battle against drugs and
have vowed to bring in the masterminds of drug trafficking
operations.

The circulation of the stimulant called Ecstasy among
teenagers has caused major concern among the police and the
public alike.

Although sporadic, anti-narcotics raids at discotheques and
other entertainment centers, resulting in the confiscation of
millions of stimulant and barbiturate pills and marijuana, seem
to have restrained the drug business somewhat.

However, law enforcers, the city administration and government
officials, as well as experts in law, have been upset by the lack
of laws to prosecute Ecstasy users and dealers. Some people
arrested for either use or sale of Ecstasy have been freed due to
the absence of such laws.

People believe that people with powerful connections are
behind the distribution of the contraband among youths and
celebrities.

Discotheques and pubs in town are said to be places where drug
transactions take place. However, police have raided such places
only sporadically, usually only in the wake of some major drug
scandal.

Although the official figures have yet to be released, it is
estimated that the number of crimes recorded this year could
reach no more than 25,000, or 1,000 fewer than last year.

This year's crime clock, a police term used to indicate the
frequency of crimes,is similar to that of 1994, with one crime
taking place every 20 minutes.

Window: The continued problem of scarcity of personnel and funds
didn't stop the Greater Jakarta Metropolitan Police from
recording a series of monumental achievements in 1995.