Situation still under control, police chief tells House
Situation still under control, police chief tells House
JAKARTA (JP): National Police chief Lt. Gen. Rusdihardjo
acknowledged on Tuesday that counterfeit cases and gun-related
crime were of concern, but argued the overall situation remained
satisfactory.
"The entire situation is still conducive for the people and
the government to carry out their routine activities despite the
existing security disturbances and public disorder," he told a
hearing with members of the House of Representatives.
He said he ordered his personnel nationwide to conduct raids
on suspected distributors of counterfeit banknotes.
The Jakarta Police confiscated Rp 5 billion and US$16,000 in
counterfeit banknotes this year. The figure is particularly
shocking as Bank Indonesia estimated there was Rp 6 billion in
counterfeit notes in circulation last year.
Rusdihardjo told the legislators that a group of 10 people
arrested in January this year along with counterfeit Rp 50,000
notes totaling Rp 194.8 million confessed to police that they
already distributed some Rp 22 billion in fake notes in the
market, Antara reported.
In response to legislators' questions about the rising use of
firearms in crimes, the three-star general gave a roundabout
answer.
"There's a strong indication that the guns (used by the
criminals) are those belonging to certain people who did not get
the licenses from the National Police," he said.
Rusdihardjo also told the House that the Jakarta Police made
"significant progress" in their investigation of the March 5
attempted murder of People's Consultative Assembly Deputy Speaker
Matori Abdul Djalil.
Jakarta Police chief Maj. Gen. Nurfaizi, who accompanied
Rusdihardjo in the hearing, said later that South Jakarta Police
detectives were making an in-depth examination of evidence.
"But we still need time to complete the entire report as we
have to double-check the suspect's testimony," he said.
On Monday, a senior city police source close to the
investigation said that he and his team "are still reading
through the booklets, notebooks and other evidence found in the
homes of Muhammad Ichwan, alias Zulfikar, in Petamburan, Central
Jakarta, and Assadullah in Bekasi.
"They could be the link to the motive behind the attempted
murder of Matori".
On Thursday evening, the City Police Mobile Detectives
(Resmob) arrested a suspect, Achmad Tazul Arifin, alias Sabar,
33, for the attempted murder. Police say Sabar was the accomplice
who worked with Matori's attacker, Sarmo, alias Tarmo. Tarmo was
mobbed to death shortly after the attack for not paying for an
ojek (motorcycle taxi) ride.
Police are searching for Assadullah, an ex-employee of the now
defunct ministry of social affairs, in Slawi and Surakarta in
Central Java. Assadullah has been declared a suspect in the case,
following testimonies by Sabar, and a witness identified as Abdul
Adzis, a Koran recital teacher at the Nurul Jihad mosque in
Kedoya, West Jakarta.
Police officers say that in Assadullah and Ichwan's houses
they have found books on warfare studies, notes on how to make a
bomb twice as powerful as TNT (the flammable toxic compound
trinitrotoluene) and a textbook on rifle and gun designs with
notes on how to make them.
"Who is teaching them all this, we don't know," the source
said.
Sabar said last week he joined the radical Angkatan Mujahiddin
Islam Nusantara (AMIN) youth organization, based in the Caringin
Maseng subdistrict of Cijeruk, Bogor, in April 1999.
"I joined AMIN in late March 1999, and was involved in the
1999 BCA bank robbery on April 15. Then I ran off to Java, before
returning in July 1999 to the capital," Sabar said.
Several Muslim organizations have voiced their concerns about
the "ambiguous link" between AMIN and the attempted murder of
Matori.
Separately, the head of the morgue at Cipto Mangunkusumo
General Hospital, Mardiono, said on Tuesday the body of Tarmo was
in an advanced state of decomposition.
He said the police had not given permission for the burial of
the corpse. (bsr/ylt/06)