Hunt on for killer of Poso village chief

Ruslan Sangadji, The Jakarta Post/Poso

A top police officer claimed on Saturday that police investigators had identified the person who allegedly killed a Christian village head in Poso regency.

After questioning witnesses, police investigators said that the alleged killer of Carminalis Ndele was a resident of the neighboring subdistrict of Torokondo.

Poso Police chief Adj.Sr. Comr. Abdi Dharma Sitepu said the police were still looking for the person.

According to witnesses, Carminalis who was the head of Pinedapa subdistrict, Poso Pesisir district, was picked up by somebody earlier on Thursday night. The person, who was riding a Honda Supra motorcycle and was apparently acquainted with Carminalis, wore a T-shirt and the sort of brown trousers normally worn by police officers.

But around 1 a.m. on Friday, Carminalis' severed head was found in Sayo subdistrict, which is a predominantly Muslim area. Carminalis' body was found in Gunung Potong area, some 10 kilometers from the severed head on Friday.

Abdi Dharma said that the police had tracked down the suspect to his house in Torokondo subdistrict, but he had already left.

Torokondo is a predominantly Muslim subdistrict, which became a base for Muslim gangs during the sectarian conflict in the regency in 2000. Muslim and Christian gangs were locked in bloody conflict, which resulted in the deaths of some 2,000 Muslims and Christians in the regency.

The situation was still tense in Poso, after the murder of Carminalis. Police held random checks of passersby and cars on Saturday along major streets in Poso, in search of weapons and bombs. Tight security measures were also imposed at Carminalis' burial.

Separately, police personnel in the neighboring regency of Donggala, some hundreds of kilometers from Poso, arrested three men on Saturday for allegedly killing a local resident, Sabri Sumaila, which had sparked an ethnic clash in the area.

The three men acknowledged that they killed Sabri, 38, after he had stolen cacao beans from the family plantation in Sidondo subdistrict.

After they killed Sabri they dumped his body in a forest, nearby Sidondo subdistrict on Saturday last week, Antara news agency reported.

The case sparked a clash between the Kaili and Bugis tribes, after people from the Bugis tribe accused members of the Kaili tribe of abducting and murdering Sabri, a Bugis. The clash on Wednesday left two people dead.