Police deny receiving suspected anthrax letter for testing

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.