Weapons used by attackers were stolen firearms: Police

M. Azis Tunny, The Jakarta Post, Ambon

The weapons used to shoot dead five Mobile Brigade troopers during a recent attack on Seram island, Maluku, were police-issue firearms, a police spokesman said on Wednesday.

The standard-issue firearms were stolen from an armory at Maluku Provincial Police Headquarters in Tantui, Ambon city, during disturbances in the city on June 22, 2000. Besides raiding the armory, the attackers also burned down a nearby police dormitory.

"We have conducted ballistics tests and are certain that the firearms used to murder the police officers recently were stolen from our police armory in Tantui," said Maluku Provincial Police spokesman Comr. Endro Prasetyo.

According to Endro, at least 800 firearms of various types were stolen from the armory. The raiders also stole thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Endro said that some of the ammunition and weapons had been recovered by police during the frequent house-to-house searches conducted by the police since the end of the sectarian disturbances in Ambon. But many more were still unaccounted for.

The police had found various leads near where seven people, including five police officers, were shot dead on Monday by unknown assailants during an attack targeted at a police operations command post in Loki village, West Seram regency, Maluku province. The other two people who died during the attack were a civilian and an attacker.

Comr. Endro added that police believed the killers of the five police officers and the civilian were from the same group that had recently mounted terror attacks in various places in Ambon city, Maluku.

Among these were an armed attack on the Villa Cafe in Hative Besar subdistrict in February this year and an attack on the Lai- Lai 7 vessel off Maluku island in March. Endro would not go into detail about the motives behind the latest incident, saying that police were still pursuing their inquiries.

"They are well trained. We are investigating which group they belonged to and what the motives were for the attack," said Endro, adding that the police had questioned 10 witnesses to the incident as of Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the remains of the five police officers were buried in their respective hometowns nationwide on Tuesday and Wednesday. The five were from a Mobile Brigade unit recruited in East Kalimantan.