City police closing in on baby dumpers

JAKARTA (JP): Police disclosed yesterday that they were making progress in their pursuit of those involved in last week's dumping of aborted fetuses and dead babies in North Jakarta.

Those arrested might also be accused of participating in illegal abortions, City Police spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang said.

He refused to reveal any further details, saying that the investigation was still underway.

He only said that detectives had already questioned 10 people regarding the dumping case.

"All of them are witnesses. They are not, repeat not, suspects," Aritonang said.

The 10 people included midwives, nurses, and people who provided information to women who searched for abortion clinics, he said.

The investigation is now focusing on doctors, who are believed to have offered abortions.

"But so far we have not questioned any doctors as suspects," he said.

Forensic expert Djaja Surja Atmaja of the University of Indonesia said that the police had already taken a statement from him regarding his team's analysis of the bodies of the 11 babies and fetuses found last Friday on Jl. Warakas in Tanjung Priok.

Djaja said the police had also confiscated a suction machine from a clinic in North Jakarta to find out whether it had been used to perform abortions.

However, Djaja said that such equipment, usually used for cleaning the uterus of a new mother, is commonly found in all midwifery clinics and surgeries.

"The machine is like a vacuum cleaner and cleans up the ... inside of the mother's uterus. But it can also be used to abort a pregnancy of less than two months," he said.

He said police had intensified their investigation since newspaper and TV coverage had prompted clinics in North Jakarta close temporarily.

According to Djaja, tracing the suspects was not an easy task because it would be hard to catch red-handed doctors or midwives aborting babies without sufficient medical justification.

Moreover, he said, "an abortion cannot be easily categorized as a crime if there are strong medical reasons behind it."

"But I think the dumping of the dead babies and fetuses on such a public space should be the focus of the investigation now."

The 11 babies and fetuses were packed together with abortion pills and equipment in three plastic bags and left on a garbage dump and in a ditch.

Djaja believed that there might be more to the case than was initially thought.

Normally, those who undertook abortions would not deliberately dispose of the equipment with the dead bodies unless they wanted to be identified, he said.

The equipment and the pills clearly indicated that the babies had come from an abortion practice, he said.

According to North Jakarta Police chief Lt. Col. Rismawan, a special team set up to solve the case was focusing on the mayoralty.

"But I don't say that we are closing our eyes to possibilities that the suspects are from other areas in Jakarta," he said, adding that the number of clinics in the area was not as many as in other part of Jakarta.

The team is made up of local senior detectives supplemented by officers from Jakarta Police Headquarters, he said. (04/cst)