Police believe they have Hutagalung killer
Police believe they have Hutagalung killer
JAKARTA (JP): Bekasi police and relatives of Herbin Hutagalung
left for Surabaya, East Java, yesterday to help establish the
identity of a man suspected of killing six members of the family
a year ago.
"The group flew to Surabaya at 2:30 p.m. today," National
Police spokesman Brig. Gen. IK Ratta told reporters here
yesterday.
Ratta would not disclose the precise number of police
officers, nor which of Hutagalung's relatives had flown to East
Java.
"They have been asked to help identify the person who was
arrested by Surabaya police detectives on Tuesday evening at a
housing complex, after refusing to identify himself properly to
employers," he said.
The man, whose identity remains a mystery due to a lack of
documents, is believed to be Suyono, alias Gendut (the Fat Man).
Suyono is suspected of murdering Hutagalung's wife, sister-in-
law and four of his children, aged between three and 18 years
old, on Jan. 5 last year.
The six victims were brutally clubbed to death with blunt
objects at the family's house in Kampung Sawah, Jatiwarna
village, Pondok Gede, Bekasi, 30 kilometers east of Jakarta.
Ratta quoted the report from the Surabaya police as saying
that the detained man has a number of identifying marks that made
them suspicious that he was Suyono.
"The man, for example, has a scar at his hairy chest and
another one on his face," the spokesman said.
The only difference observed by his captors is that this man
is thinner than Gendut, Ratta explained.
"The man believed to be Suyono, alias Gendut, said that he had
just recovered from typhoid fever," Ratta added.
"The police have yet to determine that this man is the
suspect," he said.
The man currently detained at the Surabaya police precinct was
arrested based on reports from his employer, as well as local
community members, who said they recognized him as Suyono from
the wanted posters that police have distributed nationwide.
The suspect was arrested while on the job as a construction
worker at the Karya Bluru Permai Kidul housing complex in
Sidoarjo.
During preliminary questioning, the man denied any crime,
saying that he knew nothing about the murder. He told police he
is a local worker with a wife in Sidoarjo.
Suyono's hometown is Tulungagung, which is near both Surabaya
and Sidoarjo.
When the police tried to confirm the man's alibi with his
wife, she acknowledged their marital status, but claimed that he
had not been home for three years.
Police learned from the suspect's employers that the man
always tried to postpone showing them his ID card.
Several weeks after the brutal killing of the family, National
Police Chief Gen. Banurusman ordered all his personnel throughout
the country to help bring in the suspect, dead or alive.
On Sunday, Jakarta Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto
told reporters that the police had arrested one of six suspected
murderers of the family in February last year.
Hindarto identified the suspect as Marsi, 26, also a
construction worker from Tulungagung.
Up to the recent disclosure of Marsi's arrest, the police had
named only one suspect in the murder: Suyono, alias Gendut.
Police detectives have questioned a huge number of witnesses
and combed a number of towns and villages in Java, Bali and
Sumatra believed to be possible hiding places for Suyono.
Up to the time of the arrest in Surabaya, many police
detectives believed that Suyono was living and working somewhere
in Malaysia.(bsr)