Copycat cannibal arrested

PALU, Central Sulawesi: Villagers caught on Friday a man grave- robbing, and told the police they had captured a copycat of cannibal Sumanto.

A West Palu district villager, whose name was not given, saw Yunus busy shoveling dirt with his bare hands from a plot at the village graveyard early Friday morning, police officials said.

When the villager returned with others, Yunus had already begun to uncover the white shroud of the corpse, revealing the body of a baby. Villagers then captured him and dragged him to the police station.

"It looks like Yunus is suffering from a mental illness," said West Palu's crime unit police chief Second Insp. Bayu Widjanarko.

Yunus told the police that he had heard a voice telling him to dig out corpses. "I felt like something was moving my feet," he said.

Villagers dubbed him Yunus "Sumanto", the self-proclaimed cannibal from Central Java.

Sumanto stood trial on Thursday following his confessions that he had dug out a corpse and eaten it. He also claimed to have eaten at least three human corpses. -- Antara