Police quiet about details of Gendut's arrest

JAKARTA (JP): Police are keeping tight-lipped over the recent arrest in Malaysia of the prime suspect in the gruesome 1995 murder of six members of Herbin Hutagalung's family in Bekasi, West Java.

"We can't find confirmation about the story of the arrest of the man because we can't get any information from Pak (Mr.) Nurfauzi," city police spokesman Lt. Col. Iman Haryatna told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Col. Nurfauzi, who heads the city police Crime Investigation Directorate, has been in Malaysia since Tuesday, reportedly in order to question suspect Suyono, popularly known as Gendut ("Fatso"), one of Indonesia's most wanted criminals.

Gendut is believed to have brutally killed Hutagalung's wife, sister-in-law and four children in the family's house in Pondok Gede, Bekasi, some 30 kilometers east of here, early last year.

Several senior crime investigation officers also declined on Saturday to comment on the matter, saying that the investigation is still underway.

But a reliable source told the Post that senior city police detectives, now in Malaysia, are still questioning the man believed to be Gendut, who had been working on a plantation in Johor state.

The source added that police have spent 22 months and a large sum of money to trace Gendut. Dozens of people have been questioned and a large number of towns and villages in Java, Bali and Sumatra have been combed in police efforts to capture him.

"That's why we have to be very careful in making statements to the press," he added.

Another source said earlier that the Jakarta detectives, using information obtained in Gendut's home town in East Java, have found significant similarities between the suspect's physical characteristics and those of Gendut.

However, it is not known whether police have checked the man's fingerprints.

There have been calls for the death penalty to be imposed on the party guilty of the Hutagalung family murder.

Gendut worked for the Hutagalungs on the renovation of the family house. The relationship between Gendut and the family had been very good prior to the murder.

According to Herbin's relatives, several days before the killings, Herbin's wife lent Rp 15,000 (US$7.10) to Gendut.

Police later found and confiscated a 50-gram gold bracelet and Rp 250,000 ($118) in cash from the suspect's house in Jatimakmur, Bekasi, West Java. These are believed to have been stolen from the Hutagalungs. Police also found a pair of jeans and a blood- stained shirt believed to belong to Gendut. (bsr)