City police get a new chief amid allegations
JAKARTA (JP): Maj. Gen. Nurfaizi, former Central Java Police chief and former Jakarta head of police detectives, was installed on Tuesday as the Jakarta Police chief, replacing Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djadjoesman.
Djadjoesman has been appointed head of the National Police Staff and Leadership School in Bandung, West Java, a position left vacant when Maj. Gen. Rusdihardjo was assigned by President Abdurrahman Wahid to command the National Police force.
Nurfaizi was installed at a ceremony led by Rusdihardjo, now a three-star general, at the Jakarta Police headquarters.
The ceremony was, however, marred by reports that the new officer had played a significant role, or at least had known about, the still-mysterious kidnapping of at least 23 pro- democracy students and political activists in 1998.
Nurfaizi, who was chief of the National Police detectives at the time, insisted on Tuesday that he had nothing to do with the kidnapping in which 13 people are still reported missing by their families.
"I'm ready ... ready ... ready (to be questioned) should there be an order. But I'm not involved (in the abduction)," said Nurfaizi, a former National Police spokesman, to reporters shortly after the ceremony.
Andi Arief, one of the student activists abducted by the mysterious party, was quoted by Kompas as saying on Monday that when he was released by his kidnappers to Nurfaizi's custody on April 14, 1998, the officer told him that the abductors were police personnel who had held him since March 28, 1998.
Andi, therefore, had hoped that Nurfaizi would be able to identify the abductors, trace the mastermind and determine the fate of the missing persons.
Nurfaizi on Tuesday did not name the party who released Andi to his care in April 1998.
Nurfaizi, 52, is a 1971 graduate of the National Police Academy. He replaced Noegroho, a 1970 graduate of the academy, as the Central Java Police chief in 1998.
In his speech, Rusdihardjo hoped that the newly-installed officer could continue to secure the capital and its residents and not become an arrogant officer.
A day earlier, the post for the Jakarta Police deputy chief was assumed by Brig. Gen. Basyir Achmad Barmawi, a former Bekasi Police precinct chief and head of the Police School for Senior Cadets, from Brig. Gen. Sutanto, who is being promoted to chief of the North Sumatra Police.
Farewell gift
During the last day his 21-month service as Jakarta Police chief on Monday, Noegroho, 53, endured some 50 protesters who named themselves as members of Care Police Community, or Mappol.
In their 30-minute rally at the police headquarters on Jl. Sudirman in South Jakarta on Monday, the protesters demanded Noegroho take responsibility for a series of violent incidents such as the military and police officers' brutality against student demonstrators, and the attack and burning of the Christian Doulos complex in Cipayung, East Jakarta, which all took place during his tenure.
In response to the Doulos incident, Noegroho said on Monday: "I only got the arsonists, not the mastermind behind the arson."
He hoped that his successor could solve the cases.
Some 300 people armed with sharp weapons and Molotov cocktails stormed the Doulos complex and burned the 2.7-hectare complex to the ground on the evening of Dec. 15, 1999.
Noegroho also recommended round-the-clock surveillance in Jakarta to Nurfaizi.
"Never take Jakarta for granted, even when it's quiet," he said.
He added that another priority for Nurfaizi was to deal with arrogant police officers.
"There are several police officers here who use oppressive tactics to deal with suspects or even the public. They misuse their power," said Noegroho, who plans to write a book on his experiences as Jakarta's Police chief. (bsr/ylt)