Headless body found in Klender

JAKARTA (JP): East Jakarta residents were shocked Saturday when a plant trader on Jl. Ngurah Rai, Klender, found the headless body of a teenager among his plants.

East Jakarta Police Chief Lt. Col. Nanan Sukarna said the body was naked and its stomach slashed.

"We presumed the boy was killed in another place and dumped at this site," Nanan said.

Officer Nanan urged people who felt they had a male family member missing to report to the police precinct or to Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital's morgue to identify the body.

He said the body, thought to be between 12 years old and 14 years old, had features similar with the bodies of eight other boys found previously, except for the missing head.

From 1993 to 1996, police found eight bodies; at the defunct Kemayoran Airport, Central Jakarta, and in Pondok Kopi, East Jakarta.

The boys were street singers aged between nine and 15.

On July 27, police arrested a scavenger, identified as Siswanto, or Robot Gedeg, for allegedly sodomizing and killing the eight boys. (jun)