Five more killed in murder spree in Jember, NU reveals

JAKARTA (JP): The largest Muslim organization Nadhlatul Ulama has revealed that five more people accused of being practitioners of black magic were murdered over the past two weeks in Jember, East Java.

"It is so sad that .. .the killing of alleged black magicians is not yet over ...," Reuters quoted Chairul Anam, who heads an investigation into the violence for NU, as saying in Surabaya on Thursday.

Chairul said a woman and her daughter, accused of being black magicians, were killed on Sunday in Jember village by two assailants wearing black "ninja"-style clothes. Three other people were killed in separate attacks in nearby areas over the past two weeks.

Police in Jember said the cases were "purely criminal" despite the apparent link to murders of some 200 people suspected of practicing black magic, mostly in East Java since the middle of last year.

"We have investigated the cases and found no political motive behind them," Maj. Oneng Subroto, deputy chief of the Jember Police Precinct, told The Jakarta Post by telephone on Thursday.

He said revenge was behind the murder of the woman and her daughter.

"A man called Tinarsum, who is still at large, recruited Syahuddin, who has undergone police investigation, to kill the two after his proposal to take the woman's daughter to be his wife was rejected," Oneng said.

An official team probing a spate of murders of Muslim clerics and alleged black magicians in December verified 182 deaths but has shed no light on who was responsible.

Nahdlatul Ulama's fact-finding team in December put the figure at 253, saying most of them were NU members.

The murder spree was followed by retaliatory murders of several people suspected of being involved in the killings. Police have said most of those murdered were innocent, and several were even those with mental disorders.

The team's report said it was fairly certain the killings of suspected black magicians had been organized.

The military has come in for heavy criticism for being unable to stop the killings, which peaked in September. Several people have been charged with the murders but no one has been convicted. (rms)