Bekasi poultry farmer and wife robbed again

BEKASI (JP): Police said yesterday they have identified five of the estimated eight suspects believed to have robbed for the second time a poultry breeding farm manager and sexually assaulted his wife in the small village of Cimuning at Bantargebang.

"A team of our detectives have been assigned to hunt the five suspects, whose identities are already known to us," Bekasi police chief Lt. Col. Alex Bambang Riatmodjo said yesterday.

According to Alex, two of the identified suspects are strongly believed to be the same persons who robbed the couple and sexually assaulted the housewife on Jan. 30 this year.

"We haven't yet to come to any preliminary conclusion about the motive," officer Alex said.

"Keep your fingers crossed for us that we'll be able to nab the suspects, which could lead us to the motive for the robbery," he said.

According to the farm manager, Yanto Sugiyanto, 34, the predawn robbery on Wednesday at the farmhouse was almost a re- enactment of what happened in January.

"They broke into the house at around 3 a.m., overpowered my workers, entered my bedroom, tied me and my wife up, pointed sharp weapons at us and asked for money and gold jewelry," Yanto told The Jakarta Post yesterday at the farm owned by a Jakarta businessman.

While some of them looked for valuables, one of them took Yanto's wife from his side and tried to rape the 27-year-old housewife, said Yanto, who was hired to handle the 20,000 chickens at the farm.

The robbers ransacked the house before making off with Rp 2.5 million cash (US$1,000) in cash and three grams of gold jewelry.

In the first robbery, the group, which police said consisted of five members, including three of those already arrested, stole 280 grams of jewelry and Rp 1 million in cash.

A few days after the January robbery, police arrested three of the five suspects. All of them were shot in the leg while trying to resist arrest.

They were later identified as Salim, 46, Marsani, alias Bagong, 34, and Pandi, 36.

In the first robbery, the suspects wore masks but this time they did not.

"Of the four men who came into my room on Wednesday, I could only recognize one of them who I believed was the same person who broke into my farm five months ago," Yanto said.

"I don't know what they want from me. I'm not rich. It's the company's money they stole," he said.

"My wife and I have decided to soon move from this village," Yanto said.

He said, the media seem to enjoy making continuous false stories about the earlier incident, by continuously reporting that his wife was raped and was done so in front of him.

"Even the police and doctors never come to such a conclusion," he said.

About Wednesday's robbery, he said, his wife was shocked and did not realize what was happening when one of the men took her to the bathroom. (bsr)