Police hand over Tampubolon dossiers to prosecutor's office
JP/3/Bolon/0
Police hand over Tampubolon dossiers to prosecutor's office
JAKARTA (JP): Police delivered their dossiers on the four men accused of killing General Tampubolon to the district prosecutors' office yesterday.
"We handed it over to the prosecutors' office this morning," said chief of the East Jakarta police precinct, Lt. Col. Susmono Soesilo.
In a related development, City Police chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto said that three -- not two as released earlier -- of the four are believed to have stabbed Brig. Gen. Toga Manahan Franklin, 54, after some sort of altercation on Jl. Griya Wartawan in East Jakarta at around 10 p.m. on April 6.
"We found another knife hidden inside a septic tank at one of the suspect's hideouts," said Hindarto, adding that this has led the police to conclude that three of the suspects delivered fatal blows.
The three allegedly used a bayonet, a machete and a knife to stab Tampubolon, while the other assisted. Tampubolon was a former group commander for one of the Armed Forces' (ABRI) four elite red beret Kopassus squads.
Tampubolon was stabbed 11 times and died half an hour later at the nearby UKI hospital.
"We hope that the prosecutor's office process the dossiers immediately so that they be sent to the district court," Susmono said.
Imprisonment
Based on Article 338 of the criminal code, a murderer faces a maximum sentence of 15 years.
The four, who were arrested about six and a half hours after the murder, are Rusdi Abdul Rahman, 24, Hendrik Setyawan, 25, Rudiyanto, 24, and Lukman, 30.
Rusdi, a security guard at a private house close to the scene, was believed to have stabbed Tampubolon with a bayonet while Hendrik, a construction worker, gashed the general with a machete.
A reliable police source close to the investigation of the case told The Jakarta Post yesterday that Lukman, a local ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver, was the one who helped his friends but did not use a knife.
Rudiyanto is therefore believed to have used the knife on Tampubolon.
The source, who asked to be unnamed, said that the quick completion of the dossiers also indicates that there are no hidden motives behind the killing and that no other parties were involved in the murder as asserted by many.
"The killing was purely a common accident where four people walking home from a billiard center shouted hastily and loudly to the driver of a car whom they believed had brushed against them," the source said.
The four were walking at the edge of the narrow road.
Hearing their shouts, the general turned his car back and questioned the group about their motives, which then escalated into a heated argument and ultimately the killing.
The killing occurred at around 10 p.m. Monday, about five minutes after Tampubolon received a call from an unidentified party and hurriedly left his house at the nearby Army housing complex. (bsr)