Bodyguard's death: Indonesian police general suspended
Sniper said to have been killed in gunfight allegedly had affair with general's wife
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The family of a slain bodyguard alleged to have had an affair with the wife of a police general said yesterday that he was murdered, and the injuries on his body were not consistent with an earlier police statement that Mr Nopryansyah Yosua Hutabarat had died in a one-to-one gunfight with another policeman.
Meanwhile, Inspector-General Ferdy Sambo, the 49-year-old head of the Indonesian National Police's Internal Affairs Division, has been suspended while investigations are ongoing, said national police chief, General Listyo Sigit Prabowo, last night, following mounting public pressure for the two-star inspector-general to be removed from his post.
Lawyers representing the family of Mr Nopryansyah, 27, demanded a second autopsy, arguing that the police acknowledged only bullet wounds on Mr Nopryansyah, while photos of his body showed a range of bruises and cuts, indicating that he was violently attacked by more than two people.
"Right shoulder, jaw were dislocated, teeth were messed up, cut wounds in various places including on the lips, nose, under the eyes, in the back of his ear, hand, and foot… bruises on the stomach and chest," Mr Kamarudin Simanjuntak, one of the lawyers, told reporters after filing a police report yesterday.
When asked about the alleged affair last Friday, South Jakarta police chief Budhi Herdi Susianto told reporters there was no evidence pointing to that claim, adding that the matter was a "bit sensitive" and details could not be disclosed because of the ongoing investigation.
Mr Nopryansyah, a police sniper, had been assigned as a guard to Mr Ferdy's family. On July 8, he drove Mr Ferdy and his wife, Ms Putri Candrawathi, from Magelang city in Indonesia's East Java province to the general's official residence in Jakarta.
Police say that Mr Nopryansyah walked into a bedroom on the first floor of the residence a little later in the afternoon where Ms Putri, who is in her 40s, was resting, and sexually harassed her. Mr Ferdy was not in the house at that time.
Ms Putri is alleged to have shouted, and another family bodyguard, known only by his initial, E, rushed in.
There, a close-range gunfight reportedly ensued, with Mr Nopryansyah firing the first shot.
The police disclosed the incident only three days later, a point regarded as irregular by Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD, as the Indonesian police commonly announce significant incidents within a day.
Mr Mahfud also questioned why the police had not allowed Mr Nopryansyah's family to see his body earlier.
Mr Kamarudin said the police chronology of events was incoherent. He questioned why the other bodyguard had sustained no injury in a close-range gunfight in which the other man, a sniper, had fired first.
"This calls for explanation. A sniper (Nopryansyah) fired seven shots and none of them hit the target, while E fired five shots, four of which hit the target, and as a result there were seven bullet wounds on Nopryansyah. This is miraculous," Mr Kamarudin said.
Criminologist Muhammad Mustofa of the University of Indonesia told The Straits Times that forensic and ballistic investigations would need to be conducted by parties outside the police force to ensure neutrality and counter growing doubts about the validity of the investigation.
"Judging from those many wounds - if the claim of the wounds is valid - whoever did it had enormous anger towards the victim. He did not merely mean to kill," Mr Mustofa said.
