More Beng Seng murder suspects rounded up

JAKARTA (JP): Police have detained three more alleged murderers of entertainment businessman Nyo Beng Seng, City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto said yesterday.

"The three suspects are Syamsir, arrested in the North Sumatera capital of Medan on Tuesday evening, and Yudhi and Agus who were arrested in Singapore several weeks ago," Hindarto said in a year's end press conference on Thursday.

The police chief gave no further details about the three, saying it might hamper the police investigation.

On Nov. 24, the city detectives arrested the first two alleged criminals, identified as Sudartono, 40, and Agiono, 36, just after disembarking from a flight at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

"All these five alleged suspects are believed to have been involved in the killing and may have guarded the scene during the murder," Hindarto said.

According to Hindarto, the police have yet to learn anything from the five people about the murder.

"They said that they know nothing about the motive but just did what their employer told them to do," he said.

"With the arrest of the five suspects, we'll try to complete and immediately hand over their dossiers to the prosecutor's office because we can't wait for the arrest of all the suspects as it might take one or two years," he said.

"We're still looking for a number of other suspects and a man we have identified and believe hired these people to kill Beng Seng," Hindarto said without giving details on the exact number of hired killers still at large.

He said that the identified person, who allegedly employed the murderers, is an ex-convict from the Nusakambangan island penitentiary, a noted prison for hard-core criminals, near Cilacap, Central Jakarta.

"This man was in prison for killing two police officers," Hindarto said. "Based on the latest available information we have, he was released on bail recently."

Hindarto vowed to investigate the reason behind the early release of the suspect, who is believed to be in hiding somewhere in Sumatra.

He said that the man is believed to have ordered the hired killers to carry out the assassination. "We strongly believed that this person was hired by others, who were also ordered by someone else," Hindarto said.

"Their work involved a large number of people under a series of levels of orders. The arrest of this suspect is expected to lead to the detention of the real man behind the killing, he added.

Hindarto said that the police have also identified another suspect believed to be a major part of the case and the one who supplied money to the murderers.

Due to the complicated system in the suspects' network, the police chief claimed the case might not be solved in one or two years.

"We're doing our best step by step to discover the murder of Beng Seng," he said, adding that a number of police officers have been sent to Singapore, Malaysia and many parts of the country to collect valuable information and related data on the murder case.

Beng Seng, alias Darmansyah Suyadi, 57, was savagely stabbed to death 12 times in the early hours of the night on April 15 this year by at least four masked men in front of his second wife's mansion on Jl. Pluit Kencana Raya in North Jakarta.

Previously, police and media reports named a number of people believed to have played roles in the killing, such as his competitors in the gambling business and his second wife. (bsr)