Made Arya Kencana

Arrests, but Few Details, in Bali Murder

Denpasar. Police in Bali are refusing to release details of the reported arrests made in connection with the brutal slaying of Japanese national Hiromi Shimada.

“I promise, we will reveal everything in two days,” Sr. Comr. Gede Alit Widana, chief of Denpasar Police, said during a news conference on Tuesday.

All Widana would say was that police had arrested the suspected killers, though he declined to give their names or possible motive, or say how many people had been taken into custody. He did say, however, that the 41-year-old Shimada’s two Indonesian ex-husbands — Agus and Harianto — were not among the suspects.

A police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said several male suspects had been arrested in East Java. He declined to say how many suspects were being held.

The source added that the Bali Police were working particularly hard to solve the murder, saying “our chief always gives special attention [to tourist-related crimes] and orders immediate arrests.”

The source said the suspects were transferred to Bali on Tuesday and that police had already conducted a crime re-enactment.

Shimada’s naked body was found bound, beaten and stabbed in her rented home on Jalan Sada Sari, about a kilometer from Kuta Beach, on Sunday morning.

Hartono, 35, a friend of the victim’s, said he knew Shimada as a friendly person, but added that she used to spend lavishly at nightclubs and had large debts. Shimada’s two marriages ended in 2000 and 2007. She had been in Bali since 1997.

With the island’s economy heavily reliant on tourism, it is feared that the murder of a second Japanese woman in recent months could seriously affect Bali’s image and visitor numbers.

Your View

See Result