Second maid found dead, 10 still missing

The Jakarta Post, Medan,Tuesday December 02 2014


The Medan Police have announced they have identified a second dead victim in a case of alleged torture committed against maids by a family in the city, and declared 10 others still missing.

The police previously revealed the death of Cici, a maid from Central Java who was allegedly tortured by Syamsul Anwar and members of his family, and said that they would exhume the maid’s grave in Kabanjahe, Karo regency, North Sumatra.

The second victim to have died was identified as Yanti of West Java. The police said Yanti’s remains were being held at Pirngadi General Hospital in Medan.

“We learned [about Yanti] only today, after showing Yanti’s photograph to three surviving maids. They confirmed she was their co-worker who had long been missing,” Medan Police’s detective and crime unit chief Comr. Wahyu Istanto Bram told The Jakarta Post, on Monday.

Wahyu said Yanti’s body had been at the hospital for almost three weeks. Locals found the body without any identification under a bridge in the Labuhan Deli area near Belawan seaport on Nov. 9, 2014.

He said the police initially had no idea that Yanti was another victim of the suspected torture committed by Syamsul and his family members.

Quoting information from three maids who were rescued during a recent raid in which Syamsul and his family members were apprehended, Wahyu said that Yanti was last seen being tortured by the suspects a week after Cici was allegedly tortured to death.

The witnesses, according to Wahyu, said that they saw the family take Yanti out of the house and since then they had not seen her again.

The witnesses, he added, also said that 10 of their other coworkers were missing from the suspects’ house. All 10 came from Java.

“We are still looking for the 10 missing maids. We will continue developing the case until we thoroughly uncover it,” Wahyu said.

Wahyu said the police had searched on Monday afternoon the house of Syamsul’s brother on Jl. Tuamang, Medan, where they rescued a maid identified as Dorce from East Nusa Tenggara.

Separately, Pirngadi hospital director Edwin Effendi confirmed that the body of a woman identified as Yanti had been taken to the hospital’s morgue on Nov. 9, 2014.

Edwin said the body was already in a state of decay when it was found, with indications of bruises all over it. “The body was in a green cloth when found,” he said on Monday.

The torture case was revealed after the raid on Thursday on a house belonging to domestic-worker recruitment company CV Maju Jaya on Jl. Beo, Medan.

The three maids saved in the raid were Endang Murdaningsih, 55, of Madura in East Java; Anis Rahayu, 25, of Malang in East Java and Rukmiani, 43, of Demak, Central Java.

Indications of torture were reportedly evident all over their bodies. They said they had been frequently tortured while working for Syamsul’s family for five years without receiving payment.

The police have named seven suspects in the case — Syamsul and his wife Radika, their son M. Tariq, their nephew Zakir, workers Kiki Andika and Bahri and a driver named Fery.



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