Two die in botched police heroin bust

JAKARTA: Two alleged international drug traffickers were killed and a police officer wounded in a shootout during a botched police operation in Jakarta on Friday night.

The dead, shot and killed in the Taman Rasuna Apartment compound in South Jakarta, were identified as Hunter Jackson, from South Africa, and Pakistani Muhammad Sabir Nizami, who had the aliases Sunny al-Sani and Nizami Khan.

Sr. Comr. Prasetyo of the National Police Information Center said on Saturday that both men were drug distributors belonging to an international narcotics syndicate.

Prasetyo said it had long suspected Sabir Nizami was a member of the largest narcotics' distribution network in Indonesia. Hunter Jackson was a drug distributor from overseas.

"Hunter contacted Sabir last Monday ... saying that he had brought four kilograms of heroin from Pakistan with him. Sabir told Hunter that they should meet up in the compound of the Taman Rasuna Apartments on Friday for a transaction," Prasetyo said.

Police acted as Sabir's bodyguards and accompanied him to Taman Rasuna Apartments on Friday. When the drug transaction occurred between Hunter and Sabir, police told Hunter to surrender.

"He instead took out his gun and started shooting arbitrarily. Sabir was hit ... then died," Prasetyo said.

Prasetyo said Hunter shot an undercover police officer as well in the shootout, wounding him in the shoulder.

Police then shot Hunter to death and recovered two kilograms of heroin, he said. -- JP