22 foreigners netted in New Year's raids

JAKARTA (JP): Immigration officers arrested 22 foreigners in a series of raids on immigration violators in the Tanah Abang area and on Jl. Jaksa in Central Jakarta on Friday.

Otong Hasan, an official of the directorate general of immigration, said the foreigners had violated immigration rules, including overstaying their visas and working illegally in the city.

He said the raids were conducted by two teams involving 50 officers.

Eight Africans were arrested at Petamburan Hotel in Tanah Abang at 8 a.m., Hasan said in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post.

"We were informed that many Africans stay in the Tanah Abang area. They have frequently been found to violate immigration rules," Hasan said.

When the officers checked the Africans' immigration papers at the hotel, they found that their visas were issued by the Indonesian embassies in Bangkok and Lagos, he said.

The officers later arrested two other Africans staying in houses near the hotel, he said.

One of the Africans, identified as Abdul Hakim Mohamed Awad, is a Somalian citizen and is under the supervision of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He was waiting for a third country to accept him as a resident, Hasan said.

Awad, however, had married a local woman with whom he has one child, Hasan said.

He said nine foreigners, mostly Africans, were arrested in the raid on Jl. Jaksa.

On New Year's Eve, an Indian citizen working at Kafe Lamborghini in Senayan, South Jakarta, was arrested, he said.

He said the man's working permit identified him as the cafe's marketing researcher but he worked as the general manager.

Two Malaysian were also apprehended when they failed to produce their travel documents at Ming Restaurant in Senayan on the same night, he added. (jun)