Poso PAN chairman detained in arms case
Poso PAN chairman detained in arms case
Ruslan Sangadji, Palu
National Mandate Party (PAN) Poso head Luky Lasahido was arrested
by police after illegal firearms, bullets and other weapons were
found at his house, police said on Thursday.
Luky, who was elected as a House of Representatives member for
PAN in the April 5 legislative poll, is being detained at the
Poso Police office.
"Because all these dangerous items have been found at his
(Luky's) house and warehouse, the man in question is our
suspect," Poso's Sintuwu Maroso Operation chief Sr. Comr. Abdi
Dharma told The Jakarta Post.
Police said the find was part of a series of intense arms
searches in houses around Poso after a series of renewed attacks
last month in the area, blamed on unidentified gunmen.
On Wednesday, a 600-strong joint police and Military team
searched Luky's home for weapons and discovered seven sacks of
sulfur, 300 rounds of 5.56 millimeter ammunition made by national
arms producer PT Pindad Indonesia, bomb chassis and several
homemade firearms.
Also found were a samurai sword, several crossbows and two
walkie-talkies.
Abdi said the 300 bullets were seized from a desk at the
suspect's house in downtown Poso, while the sacks of sulfur, bomb
chassis, sword and crossbows were found in his warehouse.
The door-to-door search carried out at between around 5 a.m.
and 6 a.m. at Luky's house and neighbors shocked local residents.
Most police raids in Poso usually happened at about 9 a.m.,
giving locals time to conceal their weapons before security
personnel arrived.
During the latest operations, the authorities also examined
identity cards of local people to identify illegal residents,
Central Sulawesi Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Agus Sugianto
said.
"The move is to ensure that residents from outside Poso are
not protected by local residents," he said.
However, Agus said the security forces had yet to find illegal
residents living in the houses of local people. "Despite this, we
will continue to carry out ID card checks," he said.
In two separate attacks last month in Poso's Pesisir district,
a church leader was shot dead and a women lecturer was seriously
wounded.
The shootings sparked fears of a return to religious fighting
between Christians and Muslims in the region. From 1999 to 2001,
more than 2,000 people died in sectarian fighting and hundreds of
thousands of others were forced to flee their homes.
The conflict largely died down after Muslim and Christian
leaders signed a government-brokered peace accord in December
2001.
However, around 5,000 people are still living at refugee camps
in Tentena, a mainly Christian area in North Pamona. They refuse
to return home because they fear more violence. Some also still
have no houses to go to after their homes were destroyed in the
conflict.
Frets Abast, a member of the refugee task force in the Central
Sulawesi capital of Palu, said only about 4,150 of a total of
16,969 low-cost houses had yet to be built for the refugees. Each
house costs Rp 5 million (US$574).