Metal bullets found in most victims of Friday's shooting

JAKARTA (JP): Fragments of metal bullets have been found inside most of the bodies of the victims of the bloody Black Friday shooting at the Semanggi cloverleaf here last week, a senior forensic expert said on Thursday.

According to Budi Sampurna, head of the forensic department of Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital, these bullets had caused the fatalities.

"The bullets that entered the bodies produced holes with a diameter of five to six millimeters," Budi told The Jakarta Post.

He, however, refused to disclose anything further about his findings, including the type of metal in the bullets.

"It's still under investigation," he argued.

According to Budi, all of the bullets found in victims' bodies had been handed over to the city military police for further investigation into the shooting.

The forensic finding contradicted statements from the police and senior military officials who insisted that their men assigned at the Semanggi cloverleaf last Friday the 13th were only armed with blanks and rubber bullets.

But the officials promised to probe the shooting, which caused the death of nine people, including seven university students.

Another senior forensic expert of the same hospital, Mun'im Idries, was of the opinion that the bullets that killed the Semanggi victims were fired from rifles.

He based his opinion on the wounds of the victims and the fragments as well.

"The bullets are indeed small in diameter but produced fatalities, and there were no signs of close-range shootings found on the bodies." he told the Post.

Mun'im said identifying the exact type of rifles used to shoot the victims would now depend on the size of the cartridges found at the scene of the incident.

"The bullets used during the Semanggi shooting were of the high velocity type.

The bullet's velocity depends on the amount of gunpowder in the cartridges. The longer the cartridges, the speedier the bullet, he said.

Meanwhile, reliable sources from the military and the hospital, who requested anonymity, confirmed that an almost intact bullet, measuring 4.47 millimeters in diameter had been extracted from the body of one of the victims.

"None of us in the military is armed with this kind of bullet," the military said.

According to Mun'im, a bullet was not the only forensic element necessary to determine the killers.

"Details of the diameter of the bullets alone could not explain the case.

We must also take into account the degree of destruction over the bodies, the size of cartridges found at the scene along with the bullets found in the bodies to determine the type of the weapons used during the incident," Mun'im explained.

Besides the nine victims at Semanggi, the city also witnessed the deaths of four other people on that day during other clashes in the capital.

The Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital identified the four victims, members of the Pamswakarsa volunteer security units, as Wahidinnur Nurlette, Mansur Ulu, Budi Marasabessy and Sulwan Letaluhu. (ivy)