Woman murdered in fresh attack in C. Sulawesi

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

A cosmetics salesgirl was attacked and murdered on Friday morning by three machete-wielding men in Palu, Central Sulawesi, in yet another grisly terror attack on young females in the tense province.

Twenty-year-old Supriyanti -- Yanti to those close to her -- was attacked by three men riding a motorcycle. She was also on a motorcycle with two friends.

Yanti's friend Anca, 23, who was driving, managed to avoid injury, while Yanti and her friend Evi, 20, received full blows from the machetes.

Yanti suffered a fatal laceration to her neck, while Evi's arm was nearly hacked off by the attackers.

After the men sped away, Anca took his seriously injured friends to Wirabuana hospital, but they were not admitted as hospital personnel barred them from entering on the grounds that "the wounds were too serious".

He later managed to get both Evi and Yanti to Undata Hospital, but Yanti died on the way due to blood loss.

A spokesperson for the Central Sulawesi Police department, Adj. Sr. Comr. Rais Adam, said as quoted by Antara that investigators had questioned five witnesses about the incident and were still looking for the perpetrators.

Rais refused to speculate on whether the incident was a random street crime or related to the other recent terror attacks in the province.

On Oct. 29, three Christian schoolgirls -- Theresia Morangke, 15, Alfita Poliwo, 17, and Yarni Sambue, 15, -- were beheaded by a group of men with machetes as they walked to school in Poso.

Just over a week after that attack, two female students -- Ivon Maganti, 17, and Siti Nuraini, 17, -- were victims of a drive-by shooting while sitting in front of a house.

National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko said on Friday that the police had arrested one man named Irfan Masiro, a security guard at Poso Hospital, in relation to the beheading case.

"We have named Irfan a suspect because we found that he owned a machete with a bloodstain that matches one of the victim's (Theresia's) blood type," Soenarko said.

So far this is the only suspect detained in the beheading case. Irfan is one of five men previously questioned by the local military for alleged involvement in the triple murder. The other four were released last week due to "a lack of evidence". Despite the release by the military, the police decided to continue questioning the group.

"We're still questioning two witnesses -- Sudarmanto and Lusiana -- because they were actually in possession of Irfan's machete and we want to know whether they're related to this case," Soenarko said.

As for the drive-by shooting, Soenarko claimed that the police had arrested four suspects, identified as David Mando (a motorcycle taxi driver), Ismet Oskar (a farmer), Zaenal (a teacher) and Aksan (a trader).

However, Soenarko did not elaborate on the what the roles of each person might have been in the incident, as a result of which both girls are still in the hospital with serious injuries.

Poso is a religiously divided town, which saw over 1,000 killed during a Christian-Muslim conflict in 2000 and 2001.