Police: Menteng Robbery Was Actually a Premeditated Murder Attempt by Colleague

Jakarta police have disclosed that the robbery and stabbing of a man with the initials MHA (30) on Jalan Pati, Menteng, Central Jakarta, last Tuesday (16/6) was a scenario fabricated by his female colleague, USP (31), to carry out an attempted murder. “The articles applied are Article 466 concerning assault and Article 459 in conjunction with Article 17 paragraph 1, or attempted premeditated murder,” said Central Jakarta Police Criminal Investigation Unit Head AKBP Roby Heri Saputra during a press conference at the Central Jakarta Metro Police on Friday. Roby explained that his office initially received a report from the Menteng Sector Police on Tuesday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. Western Indonesian Time. The report stated there was one injured male victim, MHA, and one female witness, USP, at the scene. Initially, the victim, who is the managing director, and the witness, a commissioner at an IT company and a colleague, were at the witness’s residence. The witness claimed the house was suddenly robbed by two people. She said the two individuals were involved in a scuffle with the victim on the upper floor. The witness, who was on the ground floor, heard the commotion and went upstairs carrying a frying pan and a stun device for protection. “It turned out the two people had detained the victim, MHA. To release the victim, the witness handed over her valuables, consisting of a 200-gram gold bar and other gold jewellery weighing approximately 300 grams. However, after the items were handed over, the two perpetrators injured MHA,” Roby said. Police accepted this report as the initial statement from the witness at the scene. Subsequently, after conducting a scientific investigation, police found inconsistencies in the witness’s statement, the physical evidence, and the statements of other witnesses who were examined. “From the initial statement of witness USP, we suspected it was false. After we discovered that no two people had entered the house, it turned out the assault on MHA was actually carried out by USP herself,” he said. Furthermore, police also found that a trigger for the investigators’ suspicion was the considerable time gap between the incident and the report to the police. “The initial suspicion was the time of the incident and the time of reporting. Because the time span from the incident until the witness reported it was quite long, more than one hour,” Roby stated. The perpetrator eventually confessed to her actions, recounting the true chronology. Roby revealed that at the time, the perpetrator and the victim were alone at the perpetrator’s house. The victim was staying overnight after completing an out-of-town assignment with the perpetrator and was due to travel to Bali the next day. At that moment, the perpetrator asked the victim to hold a cloth connected to an electrical cable, causing him to be electrocuted and fall for approximately six to eight seconds. As the victim remained unconscious, the perpetrator panicked and assaulted him using a nitrogen tube, a frying pan, and a knife. The victim sustained seven stab wounds from the incident. Consequently, police revealed that the case initially reported as a robbery ending in a stabbing was actually an attempted murder by the perpetrator, who was the victim’s superior at work.