Suspected hoarders released by police

JAKARTA (JP): Police have released four men suspected of hoarding basic food items during recent spates of panic buying here saying that there was a lack of evidence to charge them.

City Police Spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang said yesterday the four, whose identities had been kept undisclosed, were freed Wednesday night following three days of questioning.

"We had to let them go because we found no evidence to prove that they had deliberately hoarded food supplies in an attempt to sell them later at a higher price," he said.

He said that the four suspects had valid reasons for maintaining their food stocks.

"All four could prove that they did not mean to stockpile food items in order to make larger profits later," he said.

Early on Tuesday, City Police chief Maj. Gen. Hamami Nata announced that his office was investigating the four shop owners.

The four men, he had said, could be charged with subversion, which carried the death penalty.

Aritonang had said on the same day that the four vendors were questioned on "alleged activities which have impeded the government's distribution ... and trade of staple foods to the public by intentionally hoarding their stocks for their own interests."

After an investigation which ended Wednesday, none of the four could be detained on any criminal charges, he said yesterday.

One of the men was questioned for allegedly stockpiling three tons of sugar at his place in East Jakarta.

"It turned out that stockpiling and packaging sugar was his main job long before the monetary crisis and panic buying occurred," he said.

A second man, a noodle maker who was also taken in for questioning in East Jakarta, had stockpiled up to two tons of flour because he needed it to make noodles, he said.

Another of the men was found stockpiling a hundred tons of broken rice in North Jakarta.

Aritonang said the man bought the husked rice in bulk amounts from the National Logistics Agency regularly to make rice flour.

The fourth was questioned by police after a tip-off saying that the man had deliberately closed his store in Bekasi, West Java, and kept five tons of rice from the market, he said.

"This man admitted to having closed his store, saying that he was afraid of possible trouble if there were too many people coming into his store. (cst)