Police seeks S'pore murder probe results

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian police have called on their counterparts in Singapore to provide them with the latest investigation results of the killing of an Indonesian student there early this week, an NCB-Interpol officer said.

"The investigation is purely theirs. We'll join the case only if there's a possibility that the suspect is an Indonesian or if the killing had something to do with someone here," newly- installed NCB-Interpol secretary Col. Wayan Ardjana told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

The latest investigation results conducted by the Singaporean police would be valuable information for the Indonesian police, he said.

"In the meantime, we can do nothing unless they ask for help. And such police cooperation is common between Indonesia and Singapore," Wayan said.

The victim, identified as Dini Haryati, 19, was found dead half-naked Tuesday in the bushes of a park near the Woodlands underground station in the northern part of the island state.

Reports said that her body was found about one kilometer away from her apartment in the Woodlands new residential area.

Bruises were found on her neck, forehead and abdomen, while the back of her skull was broken, Antara reported yesterday.

It quoted an official at the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore, Priyono, as saying that the autopsy and postmortem examination conducted by Singapore General Hospital indicated that the woman had been raped and severely beaten.

Dini's body arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport yesterday afternoon. After being briefly kept at her family's residence in East Jakarta's Pondok Bambu housing complex, her body was driven to a cemetery in Rangkasbitung, West Java, for burial.

Dini was the daughter of Ustam Dinata, the director of operational affairs at state-owned Bukopin Bank.

She was a student at the Bandung College of Tourism in West Java and was in Singapore for a five-month job training at the Albert Court Hotel. She was scheduled to complete the program next week.

According to her roommate, she had not returned to her apartment since Sunday. Her friends believed she had spent the night at another friend's residence as she often did.

In Bandung, the dean in charge of her college, Demson Goeltom, said Dini was one of 109 students sent to Singapore for the job training program since July last year.

"We had five students, including Dini, at the Albert Court Hotel," Goeltom told reporters.

He said that Dini was a third-semester hotel administration student.

The overseas job training program for the college's students has lasted for 11 years.

A friend of Dini, Andi Nadya Matalatta, recalled that Dini was a smart and friendly student.

Goeltom expressed hope that Dini's death might not affect her other colleagues who were still studying abroad. (bsr/43)