One killed, two injured in prison brawl

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang

One inmate was killed and two others were severely injured in a mass brawl at the Tangerang Youth Detention Center on Wednesday afternoon.

The detention center's warden, Sugeng Paulus, said the fatal brawl involved inmates from Block D and Block F of the facility.

He said the detention center had received 49 inmates from Selemba Penitentiary on Oct. 30. Half of those prisoners had been placed in Block D, which was occupied by many inmates, known as the west gang, from Tangerang, Serang and Rangkas Bitung. The other inmates were put in Block F, which was mostly occupied by inmates, known as the north gang, from North Jakarta.

Nana Suryana, an inmate from Salemba who was serving a 10- month jail sentence for stealing a container, refused to be placed in Block D even though he was born in Rangkas Bitung.

"Nana's refusal offended a lot of the inmates in Block D and he was mobbed for it," Sugeng said.

He said prisoners from Block F rushed to his aid, and inmates from both blocks were soon fighting.

Meanwhile, Tangerang District Police chief Insp. Sumanto identified the dead victim as M. Yusuf, a resident of Jl. Pintu Air III/28, Central Jakarta, who was transferred from Salemba Penitentiary on Oct. 1 and was serving a three-year jail term for a drug offense.

The injured inmates were Nana Suryana and Imron bin Mursa, alias Oyon, who was serving a two-year jail term also for a drug offense.

Head of security at the detention center Raja Grand Syahputra denied that M. Yusuf was killed in the brawl, saying that the victim died from tuberculosis.

He complained that the detention center had a capacity of only 600 inmates but was currently housing 817 prisoners.