Escaped assassin, helpful girlfriend captured in raid

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A joint team of police and military officers captured early on Wednesday a former marine who had fled for a second time a military prison to evade execution.

The former soldier, Suud Rusli, offered no opposition when security forces surrounded his hideout near the West Java town of Subang, about 100 kilometers east of Jakarta. The joint team also arrested Suud's girlfriend Ida Handiyani, who is believed to have helped him escape from his cell at the Navy detention center in Cimanggis, West Java on Nov. 6.

Head of the team Lt. Col. Firman Ahmadi said the capture followed surveillance on Susukan Girang village, where Suud and Ida were believed to have been hiding since Nov. 9.

"We traced their whereabouts by tapping their conversations with their friends and relatives through cellular phones. Local people in the village also confirmed to us the presence of the couple, who rented a house in the village," Firman told Antara.

The joint team busted the two in a hut located in the middle of a rice field.

"We raided the hut at dawn," Firman said, while adding that the pair were surprised by the raid.

Suud was sent back to the Cimanggis military prison. But smarting from his escape, the Navy military police confined him to an isolated cell.

The Jakarta Police have detained Ina, a supermarket employee, for questioning. Navy military police detectives accused Ina of smuggling into the prison a hacksaw blade that helped Suud escape.

Chief of the Navy Military Police Brig. Gen. Sunarko A.G. had earlier said he considered locking up Suud at either Cimahi military prison in West Java or Surabaya military prison. Suud is facing execution for his part in a hired assassination of a businessman over two years ago.

Suud, along with a Navy companion, Syam Ahmad Sanusi, also managed to escape from a Navy detention center in Central Jakarta.

A military tribunal sentenced them both to death for the murder of businessman Boedyharto Angsono, the president of a company called PT Arena Sarana Bakti, in July 2003.

The two servicemen also murdered Boediharto's bodyguard, Second Sgt. Edi Siyep, who was serving in the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus).

Both Suud and Syam were discharged from the military after their convictions.

Unlike Syam, who remains at large, Suud was first captured in Malang, East Java after his hunters shot him in the leg.

Suud escaped for the second time after a visit by Ina.

The Navy dismissed the prison's chief warden, Lt. Col. Imam Subarkah, and interrogated four other military guards in connection with the incident.

After the second break out, Navy chief Adm. Slamet Subiyanto ordered Suud's capture, dead or alive.