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Four of nine May 22 riot victims died of bullets: Police
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Police fire tear gas during a riot near the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) headquarters in Jakarta on May 22. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
F
our of the nine victims of the May 22 riots in Jakarta have died from bullets, police say, promising to reveal the identities of the shooters.
“We can confirm that four of them died from gunshots,” National Police spokesman Snr. Com. Asep Adi Saputra said in a press conference on Monday.
Two projectiles had been pulled out of the victims’ bodies after an autopsy and are now undergoing a ballistics test, Asep said.
He added that there were indications that four of the other victims also died from gunshots, while another victim had [sustained fatal injuries] from a blunt object.
Police could only do an autopsy on four bodies, since the other five had already been taken by their family members right after the external post-mortem at the hospitals.
All nine crime scenes had been revealed through a joint investigation involving the police and other institutions, namely the National Police Commission (Kompolnas), the Ombudsman and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).
“All the crime scenes were in Petamburan, West Jakarta,” he added.
Asep claimed that the victims had been confirmed to be rioters, because they had been part of different groups to the crowds in front of the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) headquarters.
He said police could not confirm where the shots had come from, and the ongoing investigation would look into all possibilities. (asp)
