Parents of kidnapped children found

JAKARTA (JP): Central Jakarta police detectives have finally found the parents of Rona Anugraini, the only girl among nine victims kidnapped for several years by two brothers.

There were mixed feelings for the girl, now aged 14, when police took her to meet her mother on Tuesday evening at the Central Jakarta police precinct headquarters.

The girl, who had been separated from her parents since 1991, gave no expression at all when her mother, Nurhaji Hutagalung, 44, attempted to hug her. She looked confused when police brought her to meet her ailing father at the family residence in Gambir.

The girl, called Nina by her kidnappers, asked the police to let her return to the kidnappers. She said she still loved her foster mother, Erah, 35, who had taken care of her for the past nine years.

"When I saw her, I was quite sure that she is my daughter, Rona, even before I saw the scar on her right knee," Nurhaji told reporters on Wednesday when she was summoned for questioning by the police.

The finding of Rona's parents started Monday when police brought Rona and one of her kidnappers, Agus Surya, 38, to the Senen area where the latter had abducted the girl. She was at the time playing near her parents' small food kiosk.

At the site, police learned that the kiosk had disappeared. The officers then asked local vendors to help them identify the parents of Rona.

One of the street vendors then summoned Rona's parents at their residence in Gambir.

According to Rona's father, Fauzi Azis Hutagalung, 56, a retired soldier, his searching for Rona, the third of their four children, had cost him four of the family's five restaurants and a car. His health had also deteriorated since Rona's abduction.

However, he added that he had vowed to find her and continuously prayed her safety.

Police earlier said that most of the nine children kidnapped by Agus and his brother Sam Budi were street children and were from poor families.

As of Wednesday, the police had not yet determined the legal articles violated by the two men, saying that the case had not yet been fully investigated.

No harrasment

A day earlier, the police questioned Agus's wife, Erah, who repeatedly claimed to know nothing about the abduction.

Erah insisted that her husband had never mistreated the children, including sexual harassment.

"I've never heard the children say anything bad about my husband or being mistreated, so I assumed that he really loved them," she told the investigating officials on Tuesday.

Erah was brought from her home town, Kuningan, some 270 kilometers east of the capital, after police arrested her husband Agus and his brother Sambudi on Monday for allegedly kidnapping children from various parts of the capital.

Police also questioned two of the nine kidnapped victims, Kusnadi and Opik, who affirmed Erah's statement. The two teenaged boys were kidnapped last year while playing in the Senen area of Central Jakarta.

Of the nine abducted victims, seven were street children and two came from shopkeeper families. Police picked up Kusnadi and Opik from the Pulogadung area on Tuesday while they were selling cigarettes on the street.

Erah, who married Agus in 1982, told police she had not had a happy married life because her husband was impotent and she had no children. She said that Agus, who was eager to have a child, had brought home different children whom he claimed to be the offspring of his relatives.

"I believed what he said, so I took care of them, especially Rona. I treated them like my own family members," Erah explained

Erah's statement contradicted that of Budiman's, one of the victims police found on Monday. Budiman said that Agus had sometimes treated him queerly, kissing him in private places.

Agus denied that he had intended to sexually harass Budiman, saying that he kissed him as an expression of his love for the boy.

"I loved him dearly and I had no intention to harm him," he remarked.

He also told police that he often disagreed with his wife about bringing home the children, despite the fact that he could support them.

Kusnadi and Opik, who lived with Agus for a few months, told police they earned their own living as street beggars, but sometimes visited Agus when they needed money.

Agus, a cigarette kiosk owner, said that despite his meager income, he did his best to take care of the children he had abducted. He sent the boys to Magelang, a town in Central Java, because they were better taken care of by his brother, Sambudi.

Agus said the other victims -- Andri, Ari, Yudi and Dede, aged between seven and thirteen -- were also street children when he picked them up.

Sambudi, a farmer from Magelang, was willing to raise the street children because he himself was childless despite years of married life.(06)