Passports of 15 Sri Lankans found

Passports of 15 Sri Lankans found

JAKARTA (JP): Police have located the passports belonging to
15 Sri Lankans who were arrested Thursday at Soekarno-Hatta
International Airport for attempting to travel abroad without the
necessary documents.

City police spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang said yesterday the
15 detainees would be released after police completed their
investigation into the incident.

"If the passports are proven legal, original and they really
belong to the detainees, they will be released," he said. "They
may go to Australia just as they had wanted in the first place."

Aritonang said Jakarta Police Headquarters received a phone
call from an interpreter at the Sri Lankan Embassy about 2 p.m.
Monday, saying that a unidentified motorist had thrown a package,
which contained the 15 passports, into the compound.

The interpreter, identified only as Iwn, could not see the
person who threw the package but managed to jot down the car's
license plate number, Aritonang said without giving details.

A police officer from the Foreigners Supervision Unit told The
Jakarta Post last night that all of the Sri Lankan passports had
been deemed original.

"Those passports belong to the 15 detainees. They arrived here
legally and passed through Soekarno-Hatta Airport," the officer,
who asked for anonymity, said.

However, eight of the 15 Sri Lankans had overstayed their
visas for between one month and three months, he said.

"We're now investigating where they have been staying and what
they have been doing during their stay here."

The 15 Sri Lankans, all of whom claimed to be from the Tamil
ethnic group, have previously said during police questioning that
they were refugees from Colombo and wanted to look for a new life
in Australia.

They also claimed to have been financed by a West European man
to travel to Australia through Singapore and Indonesia. They said
they left Colombo for Singapore on the night of Feb. 24 and
arrived in Jakarta on Feb. 26.

The officer said only one of the 15 could so far be considered
a refugee.

"Our preliminary investigation showed that only Anthonipillai
Christy Alphones, whose alibis matched with the group's claim,
can be considered a refugee."

Alphones was the only person who arrived in Jakarta from
Singapore on the day the 15 were arrested, the officer said,
adding that Alphones would be released after police completed
their investigation.

The detained Sri Lankans also claimed during police
questioning that none of them held passports when immigration
staff and security officers arrested them because their passports
were all kept by the head of their group, who disappeared just
before boarding.

But, according to the director of supervision and law
enforcement at the Directorate General of Immigration, Zaiman
Nurmatias, the 15 were arrested Thursday night for allegedly
trying to stow away on Garuda Indonesia flight 878 to Perth.

Zaiman said in a statement yesterday that some of the detained
Sri Lankans had arrived on the same night on board a domestic
flight from Yogyakarta.

He said the stowaways' plan was believed to have been plotted
by a group which is involved in a syndicate that specializes in
arranging schemes for foreigners who do not have adequate
immigration documents.

Zaiman said the syndicate had utilized five Indonesians as
middlemen to buy tickets for five of the 15 Sri Lankans who
allegedly joined the scheme at a later time.

The officer at the foreigners supervision unit admitted that
four Indonesians had been detained for their alleged involvement
in the case.

"We've been questioning the four so far in their capacity as
witnesses," he said. (cst)