Mulyati 'did not know' about smuggled pistol

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The lawyers of Mulyati Santosa, defendant Gunawan Santosa's mother, said on Wednesday that their client had been unaware that she had smuggled a .32 caliber Beretta pistol into the prison in which her son was incarcerated pending trial for murder.

"She was only told by Gunawan by phone to insert a wrapped box sent by somebody else into a loudspeaker," said lawyer Alamsyah Hanafiah. "She did that without knowing there was a gun inside the box."

Mulyati, 68, was in Singapore when the box arrived at her house. It was accepted by Deden, a construction worker.

She is being detained at the city police headquarters for allegedly smuggling a pistol to her son, which he used in his foiled escape on March 30.

The lawyers said Mulyati had told the police her story twice: once upon her arrest without the presence of her lawyers and again in the presence of her lawyers.

However, Jakarta Police chief of detectives Sr. Comr. Mathius Salempang told a different version.

"Mulyati admitted to our investigators, both when her lawyers were present and not, that she deliberately inserted a pistol into the loudspeaker," he said.

Jakarta Police chief Makbul Padmanagara also commented on the case.

He said a speaker from the detainee's cell was taken by Gunawan's friend Ubay to Mulyati's house. Gunawan told his mother that the speaker needed repairing. Ubay was also responsible for delivering the pistol in the wrapped box to Mulyati.

Police have also finished their investigation into Mulyati's suspected involvement in procuring fake identity cards used by Gunawan after he escaped from Kuningan Penitentiary in Cirebon, West Java, last year while serving a sentence for embezzlement. He is now charged with murdering his former father in-law while on the run.

However, Alamsyah said he believed the case file would not be submitted to prosecutors on Thursday as the police still had to question two other suspects.

"Caca (Gunawan's sister) and Andre Basuki (Gunawan's nephew), the two other suspects, have not yet received summonses. We want to clarify when they will be summoned by the police," he said.

Mulyati requested last Friday to be released from police custody, to which the police have yet to respond, Salempang said.

The lawyers reasoned that at her age, Mulyati was unlikely to flee from the police.