Sorcerer awaits verdict on 42 killings (South China Sunday Morning Post, 26 April 1998)

=== [PDF page 1] === Sorcerer awaits verdict on 42 killings Jenny Grant in Jakarta South China Sunday Morning Post (1985-2000); Apr 26, 1998; ProQuest I’ve killed 42, while the target is 70 . [just wanted to improve my ability in healing ee 2 My father told mein a dream to kil them... | _ slurped their saliva up. The ot taste was loathsome Jenny Grant in Jakarta A VERDICT is expected tomorrow in Indonesia's most macabre mass murder case, in Which a soreerers is charged with killing 42 young women, The trial of Achmad Suraji, alias Datuk, charged with killing the women to increase his supernatural powers, has gripped the country, attracting hundreds of curious spectators to the courtroom and sparking TV documentaries and debate about sorcery. Datuk’s eldest wife. Tumini, is accused of being an uecessory. Police say she stood by while he strangled one of the women and then helped him with the burial. Datuk originally confessed to the gruesome killings but. ina bizarre twist this week, the shaman, or dukui, retracted the confession and blamed an outlawed communist women’s group known as Gerwani. He claimed police had foreed him to admit to the killings. Gerwani members were accused of mutilating the bodies of six venerals killed during a failed coup in 1965. The generals were tortured. murdered and dumped dawn a well. The group was banned in 1966 and has not been heard of since. In testimony to the court last year, Datuk admitted being a serial killer, saving: “My father told me in a dream to kill them... After [ killed them J slurped their saliva up. The taste was not very good, it was loathsome.” From his jail cell in the North Sumatran capital, Medan, he boasted: “I've Killed 42. while the target is 70... just wanted-to improve my ability in healing. That's all. * Police were led to the bodhouse, one. kilometre ies. buried on a-state-owned sugar-cane plantation in the village of Sei Semayang, 16 kilometres west of Medan, last May after villager Slamet Sargiono stumbled across a corpse. Sri Komala Dewi’s body, the first in the grisly series, was excavated from: a. mass Her gold jewellery and wallet were later, recovered from a goat stall near Datuk’s from the cane field. Dewi visited the sorcerer. on April 24 last year after a fight.with her:husband, Her parents are still balfled about why their daughter visited Datuk. whom she once said she hated. Dewi's mother, Arsana, had consulted the village sorcerer in the past to make herself more attractive. She said: “I once went to Datuk to get a love charm so that my husband would love me more, and so that I would . have more sex appeal.” Police say the victims. some of them prostitutes, sought Datuk’s help to increase their sexual magnetism for boyfriends, husbands and customers. The alarming willingness of-village women to take part in Datuk’s perverse rituals made them easy targets. Upiek. a local resident who called on the sorcerer, said: “Etold him I wanted to get a boyfriend quickly. “It.was one o'clock in the morning. and | was stark naked. In the bamboo shack he poured water all over me while carrying a machete.” Ms Upiek said if he mother had-not peeped through the bambao slats and told Datuk to drop the machete, she may have been the next victim, ‘We moved to his special room, He blew three times on the top of my head and kissed - me three times on the back of my neck and he rubbed lime all over my body.” She said she stopped visiting Datuk because she could no longer afford to pay him. Another woman, Wanah, who approached the sorcerer because she wanted to improve herchancesoffindinga good job, told her boyfriend after the first visit that Datuk said she would have to stand naked ina hole wearing a potato sack on her second visit. The boyfriend forbade her Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. fro rom’ going back, saying she: would be. Killed." Datuk’s close friend, Supardi; said: his wife disap- _ peared in May 1995,; The sorcerer told. Mr-Supardishe had “gone across the'Sea”:and would not be re-. turning, Mr Supardi believes she was one of the victims; although forensic tests have not revealed: the identities of, all, the women. Most were strangled, bu one skeleton was found with its head severed, =.” 4 Police fear there could be: more badiesat the site, which © has becomea macabre tourist. destination... More than 350 people have gone missing since 1987 in-the area around Medan, according to police... Many of those disap-_ ECE imjnologist, Dr.Ron: ‘Bhaskara’ Said Datuk was a. perverse conman, rather than’ a dukun with real ability. “What he did was half deception and half black magic. He may just be a-sexual per-- vert.or a psychopath.” Dozens of women’s‘ID cards, watches and dresses thought to belong to the vietims were found in Datuk’s house: