Indonesian forensic experts say 'science never lies'

Indonesian forensic experts say 'science never lies'

By Yogita Tahil Ramani

JAKARTA (JP): Not all questions one asks can be answered in a
lifetime, but science tries its best to provide factual answers.
It is up to humans to decide on how these answers are interpreted
and presented to the public.

How can a rubber bullet kill? Did a metal bullet come from a
SS-1 rifle or another type? What brand of gasoline was used to
burn a man alive? These are only a fistful of questions that the
National Police Forensics Laboratory (Puslabfor) has answered
since its establishment in Surabaya, East Java in 1954.

Puslabfor chief Brig. Gen. Suwahyu, who assumed the post last
August, and his deputy, Col. Dudon Satya Putra, who has worked in
the laboratory for the past 20 years, said in an interview last
week with The Jakarta Post that like every scientist,
regret hardly comes from getting the results of a lab report.

Both officials among others described the importance of an
untouched crime scene, and disappointments felt by all Puslabfor
staff members when justice is neglected in conveying the contents
of a Puslabfor report. Here are some excerpts of the interview:

Question: People still say that Puslabfor failed to reveal
those behind the Trisakti University shooting incident last year
and the killer of Yun Hap, who died on Sept. 24. In the Trisakti
case, what was it that Puslabfor could not do that Canadian
laboratories could?

Answer: Please, don't call it Canadian laboratories. The
bullets taken from the two-week-old, dug-out corpses of students
Heri Hartanto and Hendriawan Sie were not examined in any
Canadian laboratory, forensic or otherwise.

Forensic Technologies WAI Inc. of Canada is a factory which
uses a demo-prototype, a new research prototype, to find out
which guns the bullets originated from. They used scores. The
highest on the scale, if I'm not mistaken, is 120, indicating an
accurate, total match of results. The Canadian results were about
60 or something. In science, you can't give a half.

Puslabfor here came up with a 100 percent match. We know which
rifles the bullets came from, and who the killer or killers were.
The lab report, as existing regulations require, had to be
submitted to the Jakarta Military Police (Pomdam) investigators.
Case closed.

In the case of Yun Hap, we know from which of the (eight)
suspected rifles the bullet came from. We know the kind of rifle,
and the name of the officer who owns that rifle. We are not at
liberty to give you any other information.

What is it that you expect when the truth comes out?

We just don't want our investigations hampered or compromised
in any way by any other institutions, by any individuals. We want
the National Police (Polri) to be on its own as soon as possible.

Explain the kind of condition the bullet has to be in order
for it to be examined.

A bullet can only be examined in its whole condition. If it is
fragmented beyond 40 percent, there is no use in examining it.
From it, we can find out the caliber, the year it was
manufactured and, of course, the factory that produced it.

We can also learn its composition and type. There are several
kinds of bullets. War bullets, bullets that paralyze, bullets
with very high speed which can pierce a certain, wanted depth.
For the composition of metal and an examination of rifling marks,
a scanning electron microscope (SEM) is used.

How do you handle bomb cases?

We use a gas chromatography (GC) to examine the amount of,
among other things, nitrate in the evidence. In the olden days, a
GC used to be up to 500 feet long. Now you can have a GC, a mass
spectrometer (for the examination of paints) and an infrared in
one device. There are several kinds of bombs. When a blast
occurs, the bomb itself does not totally disintegrate into thin
air. There is always bomb residue left behind. That is enough to
determine what the composition of the bomb was and what mechanism
was used to activate it.

In the case of flammable toxic compound trinitrotoluene (TNT),
we use a gas chromatography for the nitrate compound.

The gas is injected into the GC, the stylus traces its line on
the moving graph of the GC, and not long after, you have your
answer. In any sort of explosion or fire, the bomb itself is
never totally gone. There is always residue.

An untouched crime scene is significant. When a blast occurs,
for instance, in a taxi on a main road ... we don't care if a
huge traffic jam is caused because of it. That location has to
remain exactly the same until we arrive there and take charge.

Sometimes the traffic police consider it okay for cars to keep
moving and passing the scene, or even running over the blasted
residue on the road ... That's jeopardizing the investigation.

What are the most conventional kinds of bombs which can be
easily made nowadays?

That has to be a sugar bomb. It is not made from any Army
explosives, just sugar and calcium nitrate. People use it to
blast fish. We have many of those cases here.

What kind of evidence can be checked for in a rape case? How
is this evidence stored?

Saliva, sweat, hair, sperm, bloodied sheets, anything that is
found at the crime scene. It also depends on the humidity of the
room (area) where the rape took place. If the air in the room was
humid, fungus starts to grow on it. If it does, it's no use to
us.

In the case of using saliva, sperm, sweat or mucus from the
nose in serology, they are normally unseen unless there are
obvious thick globs of saliva or sperm. How do you locate it in
the first place?

We use an ultraviolet scanner. It detects sperm or saliva or
sweat immediately. Once we find it on a bed sheet, we cut the
portion out. If it can't be cut out ... we take the whole sheet.
Hair, too, can be checked for DNA, which is the "customized"
print for each human being. But a strand of hair, however long or
however minute, is no good if the strand has no follicle.

In the case of rape, the woman usually tries to fight back. We
find the evidence in her fingernails. The bits of skin or even
hair ... the genes of the aggressor are all there under her
nails. Once they are processed, they will be checked with the DNA
of, for instance, the 10 selected suspects allegedly involved in
the rape case. And we make a match.

In any sort of case, what happens if you don't make a match?

Whether a match is made or not, a lab examination is repeated
at least twice to make sure. Whether it is done three, four or
even 10 times, each time we do it with a different team of
experts. We have to be very careful, even when we read autopsy
reports and make decisions based on it.

Meaning?

For instance, a person was hit by a car at 5:10 a.m. But the
autopsy report says he died at 5:08 a.m. If the autopsy report is
100 percent correct, then it most likely means the victim
suffered a heart attack before he was hit by the car.

How do you handle cases of arson or a short circuit? How are
ashes useful here?

Again the scene of the crime is very important. We find out
the source of the fire. Ashes are taken, and its air is injected
into the gas chromatography to find out if it was a short circuit
or gasoline was used. And if it was gasoline, then what brand
(there are several) and what type, unleaded or leaded, will be
determined.

For instance, gasoline is thrown on a table in a room and a
fire is lit. The fire climbs up the electrical circuit and you
have a short circuit. First thing we find out is if there is any
gasoline, any traces of it, in the room.

What if the ashes of a person, or material, were stored in a
can for a few hours before it reaches a Puslabfor staff member's
hands?

Then it becomes quite difficult. Even if we try and put a
syringe into the lid of the can to extract the air and inject it
into the gas chromatography, it becomes difficult. We cannot
guarantee accurate results. The crime scene must be left
untouched until we arrive.

What about paint?

We use a mass spectrometer. We can determine the quality of
paint (high/low), which brand, manufactured in which factory and
which year. We contact the factory to get more information about
the paint and find out which factories the paint was distributed
to.

What does a document and counterfeit money forensics division
do?

We examine everything that needs to be found out about the
document. The ink, the writing, the raw material used to make the
paper and which year that quality of paper was produced in, the
postage, the signature and the stamp. We use a scopeman or an
esda for that.

The scopeman and esda are computerized devices used to
determine if the signature on the document is real or fake. We
put the document inside the scopeman, which is linked to a
computer screen. The image is magnified several times and we
combine this to the image of the real signature.