Bagus BT Saragih, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | World | Wed, June 20 2012, 6:07 PM
Suryana Sastradiredja: (Antara/Aulia Badar)
Malaysian Police officers shot dead three Indonesian robbery suspects in a shoot-out on a Kuala Lumpur toll road, according to an Indonesian Foreign Ministry press release, made available on Wednesday.
“The Malaysia Police said the suspects had ended up being shot by police after they fired shots toward police officers chasing them along the toll road,” the ministry announced in a press release.
Police initially found a suspiciously parked Malaysian-made Proton Wira sedan parked near a house at the Templer Saujana Rawang housing complex in Selangor on Tuesday morning. Upon closer inspection the police officers, who were on patrol at the time, allegedly saw three people, later identified as Indonesian nationals, attempting to break into the house, the press release continued.
“The three suspects fled the scene in the Proton which, it was later confirmed, had been stolen. That was how the pursuit began,” the ministry said.
The Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur was informed about the incident by Malaysian Interpol at 4 p.m. local time, about 10 hours after the shooting.
As of Wednesday afternoon, officials at the Indonesian Embassy were still in the process of identifying the bodies of the three deceased suspects, whose bodies underwent autopsies at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.
Only two of the three were found to have been carrying passports at the time of the incident, while the third, allegedly an unregistered worker, was believed also to have been Indonesian based on other documents, said Suryana Sastradiredja, the Indonesian Embassy’s head of information, social and cultural affairs.
Indonesian officials were coordinating with relevant Indonesian agencies in their search for the families of the three men killed, he added.
"Knowing the addresses of the families of the deceased is important, because the Indonesian Embassy in Malaysia plans to repatriate the bodies," Suryana said as quoted by Antara.
The Foreign Ministry has issued, based on information from their passports, single initials of two of the three dead as S and M, adding that they hailed from Lumajang and Bangkalan, in East Java, respectively.
The origin of the third person, who has been identified as H, remains unknown.
The Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Malaysian Ambassador to Indonesia Dato Syed Munshe Afdzaruddin Bin Syed Hassan to explain in more detail about the shooting.
