National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution has said that two teams of police investigators from the Papua Police and the Jayapura Police have been deployed to search for the shooter of a German tourist.
“We have obtained good leads. However, this information cannot yet be
released to the public. Give us time to investigate first,” Nasution
told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
A German tourist by the name
of Pieter Dietmar Helmut was shot several times on Tuesday while
spending the morning at Base G, a beach in Jayapura, which is located
about 10 kilometers from the city’s downtown area, by an unknown man who
only minutes before getting out of a blue Toyota Avanza.
Helmut
was rushed to Jayapura General Hospital for further treatment. Papua
Health Agency head Joseph Rinta said that following surgery, Helmut was
in a stable condition and continued to show signs of improvement.
As
of Wednesday, Jayapura Police officers tightly guarded Helmut at the
hospital. “Nobody is allowed to take his picture without permission from
the supervisor,” one of the officers on guard at the hospital’s
intensive care unit said.
“He [the victim] has to be tightly
guarded because someone may pretend to want to meet him but have ill
intentions,” Papua Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Johanes Nugraha
Wicaksono said in Jayapura.
If his condition improves further, Johanes said, Helmut would be evacuated to Jakarta for further medical treatment.
Six
witnesses have been questioned so far. However, Helmut’s wife, Medina
Pachon, is still in shock and has not been questioned as yet.
A
bullet was recovered from the scene of the shooting and will undergo
forensic testing to identify its type and caliber as well as the
victim’s blood, Johanes said.