40 questioned over attack on Pelabuhan Ratu police office

JAKARTA (JP): Forty people were being questioned yesterday in connection with Monday's attack on the Pelabuhan Ratu police station in Sukabumi regency, West Java Police Chief Maj. Gen. Nana Permana said.

The station was virtually gutted and two cars and three motorcycles belonging to the police were burned-out in the attack. Four criminal suspects in police custody also fled when the fire started to destroy the building.

There were no reports of injury.

"The investigation is still underway, and if they were involved in the attack, they will be taken to court," Nana was quoted as saying by Antara.

West Java Police spokesman Lt. Col. Istanto J. said the attack was provoked by the precinct's decision to release a man whom the local chapter of the Indonesian Teachers Union believed had killed one of their colleagues in May.

Ujib Toyib Sobandi, a teacher at a local elementary school who served on the local committee overseeing the May 29 general election, was found dead a day after polling day in Tonjong village.

The local teachers union, not content with the police response, launched its own investigation into the murder.

The union not only determined the alleged murderer, but also arrested the suspect and handed him over to the police.

Lt. Col. Istanto J. said the Pelabuhan Ratu police had to release the suspect because there had been insufficient evidence to detain him.

The teachers union should have limited its activities to gathering information, he said. But the union apprehended the suspect and interrogated him as well, he added.

The suspect's arrest amounted to a violation of Article 333 of the Criminal Code of holding a person against his or her will, an offense punishable with up to eight years' imprisonment. (10)