Sham accident

Sham accident

From Kompas

On Jan. 24, 1995, at about six o'clock in the evening I drove from Plumpang Semper to Tanjung Priok on the by-pass. The traffic was heavy but I had nothing to worry about because I drove carefully. But all of a sudden, I felt something bumping against the left side of my car. I stopped to find out what had happened. I saw a man lying on the road, with a "wound" on his right hand. There were four other men with him, one of them claiming to be a military man. They were angry with me and threatened me.

In such a confusing circumstances they forced me to take the wounded man to a nearby clinic. The clinic staff said that the poor fellow might have suffered a bone fracture, which made me so nervous.

Being curious, I looked at the man's wound carefully. After the wound had been cleaned, I believed it was only a minor cut treated with iodine. When the man had been treated, the four others demanded I pay them one million rupiah in compensation. I argued about their unreasonable demand, and finally I gave them Rp 100,000 -- that was all I had on me.

I realized afterwards that they had tried to coerce money from me.

Name and address

withheld