Report on NZ special force hostage rescue denied

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Deputy chief of Yogyakarta Police Col. Erwin MAP described a report that a private paramilitary unit from New Zealand had rescued a man allegedly being held hostage near Yogyakarta as illogical and nonsense.

"It doesn't make any sense at all. How could someone, a member of a family owning a big company, be taken hostage for five years in a village with no villagers or police officers knowing about it?" Erwin told The Jakarta Post here on Saturday. "It's illogical."

Erwin was responding to an article written by The New Zealand Herald that Johnson Cornelius Lo, who claims to be the heir to the Tiger Balm fortune, had been abducted and held in a village somewhere near Yogyakarta.

The drama reportedly ended when eight former SAS soldiers from New Zealand traveled to the village to rescue him in November.

Erwin said he only became aware of the claims after reading newspapers on Saturday.

According to the report, Lo, who is now in New Zealand on a visitor permit, had been held for ransom by unidentified men. The kidnappers' ransom demand could not be met due to tight control on Lo's bank accounts in Indonesia and Hong Kong.

Erwin reiterated the Indonesian police would have been informed if such an operation took place.

"We would have heard from the victim's relatives. At least the villagers who witnessed the covert rescue operation would have informed us."

Erwin cited as an example the abduction of a woman student of Indonesian Islamic University on Thursday.

"Just a few hours after the kidnapping the police were informed. We located the very place where the woman is being held. It's just a matter of time now before we capture the kidnappers," Erwin said. (swa)