S Korean Bizman`s Suspected Killers Include Three Countrymen

Sanur, Bali, (ANTARA News) - The local police are currently holding 10 men, including three South Korean nationals, in custody as suspects in the abduction and murder last May of South Korean businessman Kim Jung Tae (52).

Kim was found dead in a villa in the Sanur area with his body hanging from the ceiling of the bathroom on a shoe-string tied around his neck.

Before he was killed, Kim who had been living in Bali for a long time was abucted from his home on Jalan Bypass Ngurah Rai in Sanur on May 15 and held prisoner for six days in a house in Jimbaran, Badung district.

Details of what befell Kim over an alleged unpaid debt came to light in a reenactment of the crime organized by the police in Jimbaran and Sanur on Tuesday.

After holding him hostage for six days, Kim`s abductors moved him to Villa Dampati in the Sanur area on May 21. At the villa, they again put pressure on Kim to pay his debt of Rp30 billion to a business partner who was also a South Korean.

But apparently because Kim did not give a satisfactory response, his abductors decided to kill him. After he had died, they tied a shoe string around his neck and hung his body from the ceiling of the villa`s bathroom to make it appear as a suicide, and disappeared.

But within less than a month, the police were able to identify Kim`s killers and arrest them at different places in Denpasar and Badung district.

Denpasar police chief Adj Sr Com Gede Alit Widana said the three South Korean nationals nabbed as suspects in the crime were Bae Yon Chul (38), Kim Don Su (35) and Jo Gie Tea (31). Four of the seven Indonesians were identified as Imam Jaya (36), Mertha alias Arnet (28), Andra (27) and Andre (24). end (*)