Police deny receiving suspected anthrax letter for testing

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Police Forensic Laboratory denied on Saturday that it had received a suspected anthrax-contaminated letter for testing from the Indonesian foreign ministry, an officer said on Saturday.

"Up until now, we haven't received any such letter," forensic laboratory director Brig. Gen. M. Hamim Soeriaamidjaja told The Jakarta Post.

Hamim said he left his office late at around 5 p.m. on Friday, and his office was closed on Saturday. "If it was sent to us, we should have already received it, or maybe they're going to send it to us on Monday," Hamim added.

Reuters reported on Saturday that a letter containing a small amount of white powder and bearing Australian stamps but no postmark had been sent to the Indonesian foreign minister Hassan Wirajuda.

According to the report, foreign ministry spokesman Wahid Supriyadin said that the suspicious letter had been sent to the police laboratory for testing.

But when contacted on Saturday, Wahid told the Post that he did not know where the letter had been sent as it had been handed over to the ministry's security guards.

"The security guards must have their own contacts in the police force," Wahid said.

The letter was received by the ministry's administration section on Thursday and was opened a day later. It was believed to have been hand-delivered or sent via courier as there were no post marks from either Australia or Indonesia.

"When it was opened by one of the staff in the administration unit, there was a small amount of white powder in a 3 centimeter by 3 centimeter plastic bag. I also saw the package," Wahid remarked.

The message, which was printed out from a computer, used "bad English" and was unsigned. Excerpts from the letter were as follows: "This is what you have to pay for (1) keeping smuggling people to Australia. (2) asking America to stop bombing to Afghanistan. (3) keeping criticizing Australia's role in combating terrorism."

According to Hamim, even if the police did receive the letter, they would be unable to examine it as their forensic center lacked a microbiology laboratory.

"We never expected that an animal disease would be used as a terrorist weapon. That's why we didn't set up a laboratory for dealing with biological threats," Hamim told the Post.

Hamim explained that for microbiology examinations, usually the police availed of the services of the Veterinary Laboratory in Bogor or the University of Indonesia's microbiology laboratory.

This is the third such incident in the world's largest Muslim country, with the British and Australian embassies also reported to have received suspicious letters. The scares follow a series of anthrax attacks that have killed four people in the U.S.