Two foreigners to be tried for passport forgery

JAKARTA (JP): A Malaysian woman and Chinese man will be tried for the forgery of two Indonesian passports, which were to be used to seek work in Japan, an immigration official said.

Coordinator of immigration affairs at the Ministry of Justice city office, M. Iman Santoso, said immigration officials at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport were preparing to file suit.

Immigration's director of supervision and operations, Zaiman Nurmatias, said yesterday the arrested foreigners were Lam Miew Fun, 29, holder of Malaysian passport no. A 5144463 and Chen Kok Sung, 29, a People's Republic of China national, but without a mainland China passport.

He said they were arrested on May 13 at Soekarno-Hatta Airport when they were getting ready to fly to Japan via Singapore, on Garuda International Airlines flight GA 962.

Lam used an Indonesian passport no. F 241534 bearing the name Grace Emma Theresia Saerang, issued by the South Jakarta immigration office. Chen used an Indonesian passport no. E 726654 issued in Bandung, with the name Ang Juddy.

"Airport officials were suspicious...the passport holders couldn't speak Indonesian," Zaiman said.

A press release from the Directorate General of Immigration yesterday suggested that among suspected forgery accomplices was a late Malaysian man, whose corpse was earlier found neglected at Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Central Jakarta.

The Malaysian was Tan Kok Kiong, 55, alias Chin Chong King, holder of passport no. A 825870. Tan was first brought to Husada Hospital in West Jakarta on May 18 when he lapsed into a coma after being involved in a fight at a discotheque, Zaiman said.

It was earlier reported by Husada Hospital that Tan was found unconscious in a bathroom at his residence in Bekasi.

The other suspected accomplices were Indonesians Jackson Tan, 32, Ruslan, 30, Ng Ngui Ho, 37, and Gun Eng, 26.

Zaiman said the four Indonesians, who were still at large, were from the Karimun area in Riau, but were registered as occupants in a rented house in Karang Anyar subdistrict, Central Jakarta.

He added that Lam and Chen's forged Indonesian passports were picked up at the airport in Cengkareng, West Jakarta, in exchange for Rp 7 million. The payments were to be made in installments when the two had found jobs.

They were to send the installments to Tan Kok Kiong's account at Bank Central Asia's branch in Muara Karang, North Jakarta.

The city's coordinator of immigration affairs Iman Santoso said on May 28 that Tangerang District Court sentenced a Singaporean, Loh Sau Chun, to 18 months imprisonment and a fine of Rp 1 million. Loh was found guilty of forging the airport's immigration stamp. The prosecutor had demanded three years and a Rp 3 million fine. (anr)