Police arrest suspected killers

JAKARTA (JP): City police detectives have arrested three men, strongly suspected of robbing and killing a South Korean woman last month in West Jakarta, a senior officer said on Monday.

The first two suspects were arrested separately about a week after the lady's corpse was found near a garbage dump on Jl. Abdul Hamid II in Duri Kosambi area of Cengkareng on Jan. 23, while the last one was apprehended on Sunday.

City police chief of detectives Col. Alex Bambang Riatmodjo said the suspects, identified as Mawi, Asep and Juanda, were arrested at different places in Cengkareng and Tangerang.

He said they were accused of robbing Yap Mei Lian, 40, of some Rp 400,000 (US$53) and later murdering the foreigner.

Alex said the three had committed many similar crimes by using a Dian taxi with door number 133.

"They used the Dian taxi to rob their passengers. Yap happened to be one of the unlucky passengers," Alex told reporters.

The officer said that the taxi was driven by Asep while his other two accomplices hid in the trunk of the taxi.

"The two waited for the right moment to get out from a torn backseat and rob the passengers," he said.

The black lingerie-clad corpse had stab wounds in the stomach, a bruise on her right eye and a serious wound in her left eye, a police report said. A long rope was also found at the crime scene. Police said the rope was used by the suspects to tie up the woman.

According to Alex, the three suspects also robbed a French national, identified as Bruno Julienne, of his wristwatch on Jan. 18th, five days before robbing the South Korean lady.

Bruno took the Dian taxi used by the robbers from the Tanamur discotheque in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, he said.

"It's Bruno, who first gave us the description of the three men and the taxi," Alex said, adding that Bruno was thrown out of the taxi by the robbers near the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

"The robbers used the same technique to rob their victims, similar to those adapted by rapists who used a Kotas taxi to rob and brutally rape their female passenger," he said.

As reported earlier, a young woman was raped on Jan. 22 by the driver of a Kotas taxi and his accomplice, who was hiding in the trunk of the taxi.

The woman got the taxi at the Melawai shopping complex in South Jakarta and asked the driver to drive her home to Permata Hijau area.

"Suddenly the back seat gave way, and this man came out. I didn't know that there was space between the trunk and the back seat," she recalled.

The city administration carried out a massive operation against illegal taxi drivers and those who failed to show proper documents. (ylt)