City police get a new chief amid allegations
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)