Marsinah case closed

JAKARTA (JP): Police have closed their investigation into the 1993 murder of labor activist Marsinah after their last lead, a DNA test, failed because the blood sample had been contaminated.

"We are temporarily closing the investigation due to a lack of evidence," National Police Chief Gen. Dibyo Widodo said yesterday.

"We sent the blood sample to Britain, but the laboratory could not use it for a DNA test because it was contaminated.

"The sample was two years old," he said.

The DNA test was the last and probably only lead the police had to sustain their investigation into the murder which had stirred public outcry at home and abroad.

The Supreme Court in 1994 acquitted nine people whom the Surabaya District Court had convicted for Marsinah's murder, ruling that the trials were inconclusive, and that much of the evidence was extracted from the suspects by force.

Marsinah was found dead after organizing a workers' strike at PT Catur Putra Surya, a watch manufacturer in Sidoarjo, East Java. Her badly mutilated body was found on May 9, 1993, in an abandoned shack near Nganjuk in East Java.

Marsinah's death has since become a rallying point for workers in demanding better treatment from authorities. She has also been given various awards posthumously, including the workers' hero award by the All-Indonesia Workers Union.

Police brought the nine suspects -- the owners, managers and security officers of the company -- to Surabaya District Court, and all of them were subsequently convicted.

The suspects had pleaded their innocence and said they were framed for the murder because the government was taking so much heat from labor organizations and human rights campaigners at home and abroad.

After their release in 1994, police insisted that they remained the chief suspects and that the DNA test would support their cause for a new trial. (cst/emb)