Employees suspected of killing employer

Employees suspected of killing employer

JAKARTA (JP): A team of Central Jakarta Police detectives are
hunting down a gardener and a driver who allegedly killed their
employer, Megawati Purnomo, on Monday.

A source at the Menteng Police substation said on Wednesday
that vengeance was the most obvious motive behind the murder
since the two suspects Saputra, 25, (driver) and Susanto, 15
(gardener) took nothing from their employer.

"Based on the questioning of Megawati's housemaids Nita and
Ifah, we are 90 percent convinced that the suspects killed their
employer out of revenge," the source, who requested anonymity,
said.

The source quoted Nita, 22, and Ifah, 16, who were questioned
as witnesses, as saying that Megawati had treated her employees
inhumanely, including the suspects.

According to the housemaids, their employer was very talkative
and frequently humiliated Saputra, who had been working for her
for more than three years. Susanto was hired just three months
ago.

The police assume the suspects fled to their hometowns in
Central Java.

"She (Megawati) did not even provide a bedroom for the driver
and the gardener so that they had to sleep in the garage," the
source quoted the housemaids.

The witnesses also claimed that their employer seldom fed her
employees and sometimes forgot to pay their monthly wages.

Megawati's son, Benjamin Sulendro, was also questioned at
Menteng Police substation, but he refused to speak with a group
of waiting journalists.

Earlier on Wednesday, Central Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr.
Mathius Salempang said Megawati's blue Nissan Terano van bearing
registration number B 2232 B was found late on Tuesday near a
swamp in Penjaringan subdistrict, North Jakarta.

Megawati, 67, wife of export-import businessman Sulendro, was
found dead with numerous stab wounds and bruises in front of the
Kapuk residential complex in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, on
Tuesday. She left her house on Jl. Irian in Menteng at 9:30 p.m.
on Monday, just after she visited her husband at Gatot Subroto
Hospital, in Central Jakarta.

The body of Megawati was being kept at Atma Jaya mortuary in
Pluit, North Jakarta, as of Wednesday afternoon.(01)