Dogs snoop around the palace

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In an impromptu operation dogs were deployed around the presidential palace grounds in Jakarta on Monday to search for drugs among security guards. Fortunately nothing was found on the soldiers.

A senior official of the presidential guards told The Jakarta Post that security guard commander Maj. Gen. Nono Sampono ordered the inspection to ensure that none of his soldiers were involved in drug abuse.

"We did not find anything on them, and most of them found the inspection quite funny ... they were laughing when the dogs started snooping around their posts in the palace," said an official, who asked not to be named.

Six dogs from the National Police Animal Center started the abrupt inspection at 10 a.m. by searching all military posts of the security guards around the palace.

Most of the soldiers initially looked puzzled with the inspection, but were amused when the dogs started to do their job of searching through the post.

"I was really surprised with the inspection, we never even heard of the commander wanting to conduct such a search. But, it is OK," one of on-duty soldiers said, laughing.

When asked the reason behind the abrupt inspection, the senior officer said that it was important to make sure that all soldiers were free from drugs as part of the national campaign against drug abuse.

When further pushed whether there were indications of illegal drug use among the soldiers prompting the commander to conduct the inspection, the officer simply said: "No."

It was unclear whether a similar search would also be conducted among the security guards at the Vice President's office.