Kalla's soup not killer dish: Police

Kalla's soup not killer dish: Police

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

Police confirmed on Friday there were an insignificant levels of
arsenic found in the soup prepared for Vice President Jusuf Kalla
when he visited Bali.

Denpasar Police head of the forensic and laboratory unit, Sr.
Comr. Budiono, said that samples of the food items contained 0.09
mg of arsenic.

"Of the four samples we took, we found arsenic in the two
samples of the soup, but we did not find it in the other two
samples of the slices of cabbage leaves and fried chicken,"
Budiono said here.

Budiono said the level of arsenic, which were identified
through the Atomic Absorption Spectrometer and reduction and
oxidization methods, was relatively far lower than the level that
could lead to death.

"If the level is at 185 mg ... per liter of water, then it can
cause death. So, you can conclude yourself the possible effect of
the amount we discovered of only 0.09 mg," he said.

The safe level of naturally occurring arsenic in the
environment that humans could breathe in without harm was 0.05
mg, he said.

"So, it is still quite harmless if the level of arsenic is a
little bit higher than that," a police forensics specialist, who
studied in the United Kingdom, said.

A number of vice presidential guards suspected the presence of
arsenic in the food prepared for Kalla when he arrived here on
Wednesday to meet participants of the Golkar Party Congress.
Kalla is vying for the party's chairmanship post.

It remains unclear why the guards suspected the dish of
containing arsenic; the substance is colorless and tasteless and
not easily detected without a laboratory test.

Human rights activist Munir, who died of arsenic poisoning in
September, is strongly suspected to have been deliberately
poisoned in a political assassination.

Police said they would continue to test the food to find out
where the low level of arsenic came from.

"We are trying to find out where the arsenic came from,
whether it's from the water itself, the cooked food, or the
spices. But we also need to remember that there's also arsenic
all over us, even in the air we breathe," Budiono said.

Detectives chief Sr. Comr. DBM Suharya said police had
questioned five people who were directly involved in serving the
food to Kalla.