The East Java Police yesterday arrested two men suspected of the brutal murder of a 28-year-old dance teacher from the city of Kediri, Budi Hartanto, whose body was found shoved into a suitcase with his head missing.
Police say the one of the suspects, identified by his initials AP, was arrested in Jakarta while the other, who was identified by his initials AJ, was arrested in Kediri.
“Both of them were from Kediri. They were close acquaintances with the victim,” East Java Police Spokesperson Frans Barung Mangera told reporters today, as quoted by Detik.
Frans has yet to reveal the suspects’ motives for killing Budi, but the police previously alluded that the crime may have been related to romance.
Police say the suspects murdered Budi in Kediri before they decapitated him, shoved his body into the suitcase and tossed it under a bridge in the nearby city of Blitar, where the body was found last Wednesday.
Police took AJ to the Jemekan River in Kediri this morning, where the suspect said he and AP tossed Budi’s head after the murder. Officers found the head, which had decomposed considerably in the days since it was tossed, in a sack dangling off a tree branch.
The police have yet to announce the charges against AP and AJ, but premeditated murder is a crime punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty in Indonesia.
Reader Interactions