Drug dealer takes vital information to grave July 9, 2005
Indonesian officers know dead men do not tell tales, writes Matthew Moore in Jakarta.
When the nine Australians in Bali go on trial to save their lives in coming months, the man who allegedly helped supply them with 8.6 kilograms of heroin will not be around to reveal what he knew about them, their deal or police involvement in Indonesia's drug trade.
Since late April, Man Singh Ghale's body has been rotting in the city cemetery in Menteng Pulo, in South Jakarta, after officers from Indonesia's anti-drugs agency cuffed his hands behind his back, shot him in the right leg and later shot him dead.
On April 28, the day after the execution, General Sutanto, then head of the drug agency and now the country's police chief, went to Bali to explain to journalists that his men had no choice but to kill Ghale. He had been shot because he had tried to resist arrest when they entered his house on Jakarta's outskirts, the general said.
The evidence from neighbours who watched the arrest, and from others who know Ghale's history, says the opposite and suggests police had their own reasons for disposing of a man who was one of the big drug dealers in Indonesia.
How many times police shot Ghale, originally from Nepal, is one of the many mysteries about the slightly pudgy, shortish man aged about 30.
According to the Nepalese embassy in Burma, which has responsibility for Indonesia, and Nepal's Department of Foreign Affairs in Kathmandu, Ghale was married to a Nepalese woman, Sita, and they had two children. She lives in the small town of Dhading in the Kathmandu valley and travelled to the capital to try to bring her husband's body home from Indonesia so she could cremate it. Ram Singh Thapa, from the embassy in Burma, said his office had requested the remains, which might reveal how many times Ghale was shot. He is still waiting for an answer.
Doctors who carried out the autopsy are too frightened to say how many times Ghale was shot or where the bullets entered his body. Senior Superintendent Indradi Tanos, of the narcotics division at police headquarters, refused to disclose the contents of the report. "Why are you asking this?" he asked. "You are beyond the limits. Whose side are you on? Have you seen the victims of heroin, what these [drug dealers] people have done?"
At a Bali media conference announcing Ghale's death, General Sutanto said police had captured him twice before. The first time was in 1999, when he was caught with a firearm living in Jakarta's outskirts in Bekasi. He was jailed but did not stay inside long. Police captured him again on October 28 last year when he was back in Bekasi. He escaped two days later.
No explanation has been provided of how a man known as one of Indonesia's biggest drug dealers was able to slip out of the Jakarta police centre. Even more unusual is that several weeks after he fled custody he returned to Bekasi, where police say a local man agreed to rent a house on his behalf. Then there is the fact that 10 days after the nine Australians were arrested in Bali, Ghale had made no effort to flee his house.
The Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Mick Keelty, said Ghale was "directly linked" to the nine Australians. "Detailed examination of travel records and communications led us to the deceased," he said. Indonesian police told the Herald these "communications" included emails to Ghale from one of the Bali nine, believed to be Andrew Chan.
Despite those links, Ghale continued his extrovert lifestyle, playing his loud Indian music and sometimes singing karaoke with the two women who shared his house. The women were known to neighbours by their aliases. One, called Siti Komariyah, is believed to be Nepalese. The other, one of the last of many young Indonesian women in Ghale's life, was called Khusnul. The Herald has been unable to contact them to check claims they were linked to the police.
Police have not said how they came to find Ghale's house, but sources familiar with the case believe Ghale never really escaped. Rather, they say police allowed him to operate under close surveillance, letting him set up drug deals because they wanted a slice of the money.
In Indonesia people have to pay to get government jobs. Jobs in the narcotics section have long demanded the highest entry prices because it is regarded as a prime "wet area", with lots of money sloshing around.
General Sutanto admitted to Tempo magazine this week that police in drugs cases regularly confiscated any money they found and were allowed to keep some for their personal use.
When Ghale was killed, police say, they found a handgun, 750 grams of heroin, 280 grams of cocaine and some ecstasy under his bed. There was no mention of a large amount of cash some believe Ghale had stashed.
His death was hardly surprising in a country where drug dealers and other criminals often die while supposedly trying to escape.
General Sutanto linked Ghale with the January 2000 arrest at Jakarta Airport of three Indonesians who were attempting to smuggle about 15 kilograms of heroin to London via Hong Kong. He did not mention that within hours of grabbing the three, police raided a house in South Jakarta and killed all five people inside.
An unidentified policeman said one of the deceased had a gun and had fired at police, none of whom was injured. The officer leading the raid told The Jakarta Post it was "simply a follow-up" to the airport arrests. The paper said one of the men shot was married to one of two Indonesian women arrested earlier that day.
A fortnight later, police raided another Jakarta house where they shot dead five more people suspected of drug dealing. Again they claimed they had been threatened by a gun. Once again, no police were injured.
In the indictments against the three arrested at the airport, and in the court case where they were all sentenced to death, there was no mention of Ghale. Although Ghale is believed to have moved heroin from Thailand and into Indonesia since the mid- to late-1990s, his activities first came to police attention in 2001 when another Nepalese drug courier was caught in a Washington airport and apparently revealed details of Ghale's operation.
By then, Ghale was organising couriers from Thailand and Indonesia to use false Malaysian and other passports to take heroin to Europe, North and South America, according to several sources. He is believed to have had partners in India and Singapore, with the most senior people based in Thailand, where Ghale was well known to police.
The US Drug Enforcement Agency was also long aware of Ghale's activities, although the US Justice Department said there was no warrant in the US for his arrest when he was killed.
Apart from Ghale himself, the other person who might have revealed details of his operation was released from police custody.
Superintendent Tanos said a Thai woman called Cherry Likit Banakorn was the one who delivered heroin to the nine Australians in Denpasar. "Cherry came twice to Indonesia carrying the heroin, five kilograms each trip," he said. The first time was when she flew from Phuket in Thailand to Singapore and on to Denpasar via Jakarta and Solo in Central Java.
Six days later, on April 14, she flew from Phuket via Singapore to Denpasar, where she stayed at the Seaview Hotel in Kuta. She left Bali on April 18, the day after the nine Australians were arrested, he said. Superintendent Tanos said Cherry, like others who worked with Ghale's syndicate, used a specially designed bag that was "X-ray-proof" to transport the drugs.
On her way back to Thailand she was stopped by police at the Thai-Malaysian border and held until Indonesian authorities arrived. But the Thais said their Indonesian colleagues did not have the paperwork to extradite Cherry and let her go.
With Cherry and Ghale gone, police are struggling to work out how the alleged deal with the Australians was put together, who was involved in Thailand and Indonesia, and what happened to the money. Some sources say it was set up in Australia with a middle-aged man known as Acuan, also called Jimmy, working with Andrew Chan.
But Indonesian police have complained that Chan has refused to co-operate. His ignorance, or refusal to co-operate, may help save Ghale's syndicate, but it is unlikely to save him and the eight other Australians.
Sydney Morning Herald ---------------------------------------------------
On an emotional level it's easy to say who cares, another drug dealer bites the dust. Evidence suggests Ghale's death serves only to protect those in power who are equally guilty of profiting from the misery of others.
