'General's son' mobbed

'General's son' mobbed

KUTA, Bali: A man, claiming to be the son of a retired Army
general, was beaten black and blue by an angry mob in Legian,
Kuta, some 12 kilometers west of Denpasar, for refusing to pay
for the dozens of clothes he picked from a department store on
Friday.

The incident took place at the More Core Division store after
shop assistant Angelic Oktavia asked the man, later identified as
Hendri Tjahyono, to pay for the clothes he had just selected from
the store.

"He gave me a Lippo credit card. But our card verifier
rejected it," Angelic said, adding that the man forced her to
accept the card, saying he was the son of an Army general who was
once chief of the Udayana Military Command overseeing Bali.

"When we were arguing, people started to gather around but the
man got upset and verbally abused them. They lost their patience
and started mobbing him," she said.

Kuta riot police chief Second Insp. Ida Bagus Suastika said
the man was very lucky because "policemen arrived at the right
time to save him." (zen)