Drug dealer's escape still puzzles police

JAKARTA (JP): City police are still in the dark about the whereabouts of an African charged with heroin trafficking who escaped from jail a week ago.

Several senior police officers told The Jakarta Post yesterday that Interpol has agreed to help Jakarta Police to trace Ibrahim Saebu, 24, if he leaves Indonesia.

Saebu, holder of a Mali passport, and his boss, Mustafa Abdul Genewu, were apprehended by Jakarta detectives at different hotels in Central Jakarta on Sept. 23. They were in possession of 800 grams of heroin, worth Rp 400 million (more than US$175,000) at the time of arrest.

Mustafa, 28, holds a Ghana passport.

The two suspects were being held in two different cells at City Police Headquarters. Saebu, who was in a cell with three other prisoners at the jail, was reported missing in the early hours of Oct. 1.

High-ranking police officers told the Post earlier that they were shocked at the news and confused about how Saebu could have escaped from the jail in the expansive police headquarters compound.

Police are questioning jail officers, and Saebu's cell mates, as well as other people believed to have information about the suspect's escape.

Investigators had hoped that Saebu's girlfriend, a local woman, could shed some light on his current whereabouts, but she has little information.

Sources said that one captain and four sergeants who were on duty at the time of the escape are now in custody.

Their interrogators reportedly complained that their investigation into the escape was hindered by the fact that detectives had never informed them that months had been spent monitoring the activities of Saebu, who has been in Indonesia for two years.

"We're facing a difficult puzzle about why Saebu, not Mustafa, the boss, escaped from jail," one of the officers, who refused to be named, said. (bsr)