Police reveal dossiers on Elize, mother Sonya

JAKARTA (JP): While suggesting that fugitive Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra was the one ultimately responsible for the recent arrest of Elize Maria Tuwahatu, 33, for possession of three bombs at the Indonesia-in-Miniature Recreational Park (TMII), the police also stated their belief that the truth would come out in its own good time.

"When things become strange, people refuse to believe. After hours of complete silence, when Elize first said Tommy gave her the bombs, we took a stick and repeatedly beat it hard on a chair to scare her into telling the truth," a police source told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

"We tried to mentally scare her and nearly tried physical force. She said in tears, 'I swear. It was Tommy.' Only time will tell what the truth is, but all the current evidence and testimony indicates that Elize is telling the truth."

"Elize's friend, Lisa Lopulisa, a witness in the case, has told the police that she saw Tommy with Elize last Sunday. Existing regulations require at least two people to vouch for this... we have Elize, and we have Lisa."

Elize told officers earlier during a marathon interrogation session that during a 40-minute car ride around Menteng last Sunday, Tommy gave her the bombs, taught her how to detonate them, and gave her the three targets and a list of code names for the bombing jobs.

East Jakarta Police chief of detectives, Adj. Comr. Agus Irianto said the code names included:

Padi/Kedelai (rice/soybean) for the bombs; sawah (irrigated field) for office locations; ladang (unirrigated field) for residential locations and ditanam (planting) for the actual planting of the bombs.

"If a question like 'have the soybeans been planted in the sawah?' is asked, you know what that means," Agus said.

Elize told police that she met Tommy on the roadside of Jl. Cilacap, Central Jakarta on Jan. 14.

She was with Lisa who drove Elize's Timor sedan for the meeting, when Elize received the package of bombs. At the meeting, Tommy told Elize to get into his metallic Silver Kijang van and took her for a ride, while Lisa waited in the Timor sedan.

Elize's mother, Sonya Tuwahatu, also a witness in the case, told police that she believed her daughter had psychic powers.

"She sometimes becomes possessed and goes into fits. When she becomes like that, she does not want to see my face. She puts her head down and tries to avoid eye contact," Sonya said in the police dossiers.

Sonya told police that Tommy started to trust Elize, when once Elize predicted that he would meet with a motorboat accident.

"She told him not to go on this motorboat trip ... she said he would meet with an accident. He didn't listen and sure enough, he was out for two days. After that, he started trusting her," Sonya said.

In the police dossiers, Elize said that she had first known of Tommy when he sent her a flower bouquet on her 17th birthday, but had only met him for the first time 10 years ago at his residence on Jl. Cendana.

"Ten days after he disappeared (when he evaded jail in November of last year), he contacted me to speak of general things. A second call followed and he later told me to place the bombs. I told him that I didn't dare to. I offered to find someone who would be able to do it. I found Ki Joko Bodo, a psychic, through a mystery magazine."

Joko, who reported Elize to the police which led to her arrest on Friday, said that she had first come to his psychic clinic to ask for "genies".

"She wanted a genie ... then she said she wanted me to show her how to do vanishing acts, and then later she told me to help her use her psychic powers so that her restaurant would be a success. She spoke about the bombs later," Joko said in his police statement.

Elize's dossier states that she dropped out of Trisakti University's School of Medicine in 1991, and went on to establish a construction company, PT Dewi Mandala Sejati, which eventually collapsed.

A former treasurer of the Republic Party, Elize only opened her seafood restaurant, Elmo's Corner on Jl. Suwiryo No. 48, where she lives, in February of last year.

Sonya has said that Elize's Timor sedan was given to her by Tommy. (ylt)