Three men detained over mutilated body

JAKARTA (JP): City Police chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djajoesman said on Thursday police detectives had strong leads in Monday's mutilation case.

The two-star general refused to disclose any details, however, but said the detectives had intensively questioned close friends of Sumarsana, the 33-year-old victim.

But a reliable source with the detectives said they had picked up three men, identified as Teng In, Agus and Mulyawan, from their homes and were now "secured" at a house in the Lippo Karawaci housing complex in Tangerang.

The three, he said, were assembled based on Sumarsana's diary seized by the police from his rented room on Jl. Dr. Susilo in West Jakarta.

In the diary, Sumarsana repeatedly referred to the three as his "intimate friends", the police source said.

Sumarsana's dismembered body parts were found on Monday afternoon at two places: his torso at a dumping site in Cisoka, Tangerang, and his head, arms and legs in a drain on Jl. Arjuna Selatan near the Kebon Jeruk toll road gate, which has a direct link to Tangerang, West Jakarta.

Witnesses at the Cisoka dumping site told police they saw a dark-colored Kijang van pass an old cemetery near the road and stop for awhile before quickly leaving the site, the police source explained.

"But we have so far only found a black Opel Blazer at one of the three men's houses," he added.

One of Sumarsana's colleagues at the plastic household manufacturer, PT Lion Star on Jl. Kamal Muara in West Jakarta, informed the police during questioning that the victim was last seen at his office on Monday morning, and then he left after a man came to pick him up with a car, the source said.

The source said the questioning of the three was not yet final.

Fingerprint

Maj. Gen. Noegroho said police had questioned several people, including Sumarsana's girlfriend Sri Lestari Setyawati and his two colleagues, Abdul Rahman and Hariyadi Nata.

"From the questioning, there are clues that can help us trace the murderers," he said.

He said the police had come to a final conclusion that the mutilated body was of Sumarsana following a fingerprint sample submitted to the police by Sumarsana's relatives.

Many have speculated that the suspected murderers were people close to Sumarsana and the motive behind the killing was a personal dispute associated with deep resentment.

After studying several previous mutilation cases, Abdul Mun'im Idries, a noted forensic expert at the Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital, suggested police officers focus the investigation on Sumarsana's closest friends.

"Records of mutilation cases have showed that all the culprits were people who knew the victims well," he told reporters at his office.

Mun'im, who has worked at the hospital's forensic department since 1972, said the capital has witnessed at least seven mutilation cases since the 1970s.

One of the mutilation cases involved the discovery of dismembered female body parts floating on a river in Pondok Ranggon area in East Jakarta in July 1998.

Shortly after the finding, police disclosed that an Air Force member, First Sgt. Uki Wardhana, confessed he had murdered his lover, Rahayu Chaeranti, alias Butet.

Uki said he had to kill Butet after the latter repeatedly tried to force him to marry her.

Mun'im said he had a mutilation case in which the culprit chopped off the victim's genitals.

"It was caused by jealousy. I forgot the details of the case, but the husband chopped the third man's genitals off," said Mun'im.

Mun'im cited two obvious purposes for mutilation which were to erase clues and to easily transport the corpse from the scene of the crime.

Sumarsana's genital parts are reportedly still missing. (asa/emf)