Matori leaves hospital, police widen search

JAKARTA (JP): Chairman of the National Awakening Party (PKB) Matori Abdul Djalil was released from Pasar Rebo Hospital on Tuesday after three days of intensive treatment for head and arm injuries sustained in a Sunday morning attack.

"I have no grudges against anybody ... and I will not step up security for my benefit. I just want things to go on the way they were," Matori, who is also deputy speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly, said.

Still bandaged, he left the East Jakarta hospital at about 2 p.m. and headed to his home on Jl. Elang Mas in the Tanjung Mas Raya housing complex in South Jakarta, the site of the attack by an unidentified man.

Separately, the police announced they had yet to name any suspects or the masterminds of the attack. They said they so far have questioned five men, who were released shortly afterward.

Late in the evening, South Jakarta Police chief Col. Nono Suprijono said his men had just questioned a man, identified as Tikno.

He gave no further explanation, saying that the questioning was still going on.

Matori was struck with a machete on the back of his head and right arm at his home by a man posing as a salesman of interior design goods.

Another man, who was waiting outside on a black Yamaha RX-King motorcycle with license number B 5013 PZ, attempted to help the attacker flee.

However, the attacker was later caught and beaten to death by angry residents and ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers near the Jagakarsa College of Economics on Jl. TB Simatupang.

The machete has not been found and the man riding the motorcycle is still at large.

A police source said six teams of detectives have been spread out over certain areas in Cijantung, East Jakarta, and several areas in South Jakarta and neighboring Bogor to track down the wanted suspect and a witness.

The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the teams were experiencing "serious difficulties" in locating both the suspect and a witness.

"We found Windu (owner of a beeper found at the crime scene) in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, on Monday, and during questioning, he said the owner of the beeper was a man identified as Slm," the officer said.

The police learned that Slm obtained the beeper from a man identified as Mln, he added.

"We are now searching for this Mln in an area in South Jakarta," the source continued.

Heri, the one who earlier claimed to have found the beeper along with an FN bullet and magazine in front of his small grocery stall opposite the college, told reporters he recalled several new facts about the incident.

"There were three suspects. Not two. Three men had stood in front of my stall," Heri said at his kiosk on Tuesday.

He explained that one was dressed in training pants and a white T-shirt and the second wore a white shirt and was carrying a bag, but he could not remember the attire of the third.

"I remember clearly that there were three men. The man with the white shirt and the bag was carrying the gun. He took out his FN gun carelessly, and out fell his pager. He fired his gun once in the air. When he tried to reload, a bullet instead fell, he must have done something wrong," Heri said.

"The suspect tried reloading again, and out fell the magazine. The FN was useless. So, both (suspects) ran. One went straight toward Jl. Raya Pasar Minggu, where he was mobbed to death on Jl. Perikanan. The two other men passed a graveyard to the right, and came out at the Aneka Tambang building, heading for Jagakarsa. They were safe."

Heri added that he received two anonymous calls, during and after the incident, and not one as he earlier stated to the police.

"During the second call, the man who was asking me to keep the beeper I found until he fetched it, said that he was from Cijantung, East Jakarta," Heri said.

"That's funny since I don't know anybody from Cijantung. I have lived here only in the past two months." (ylt)