Indonesia: Five named suspects in Jambi land, forest fires

Jon Afrizal The Jakarta Post 9 Sep 17;

The Jambi Police have named five people as suspects during their investigation into seven land and forest fire cases, which occurred from January to August.

Jambi Police spokesperson Comr. Wirmanto Dinata said three out of the seven cases were handled by the Tebo Police while two cases were investigated by the Batanghari Police. The East Tanjungjabung Police and the Muarojambi Police handled one case each.

Three land and forest burners were named suspects by the Tebo Police while two others were declared suspects by the Muarojambi Police and the East Tanjungjabung Police.

“They were all named individual suspects. There has been no corporation named suspect in the land and forest fire cases,” Wirmanto said on Friday.

He said three case reports handled by the Tebo Police and another report tackled by the East Tanjungjabung Police were all still under investigation. Meanwhile, the investigation by the Muarojambi Police had been completed, in which both suspect and evidence had been handed over to prosecutors.

“Two reports handled by the Batanghari Police are still in the investigation stage and no one has been declared as a suspect,” said Wirmanto.

Fires reported in the seven dossiers cover 6.5 hectares of land, of which 2.5 ha is located in Tebo and another 2 ha is in Batanghari. East Tanjungjabung and Muarojambi has 1 ha each.

“We are calling on all land owners and companies not to clear land using slash and burn methods. We will impose tough sanctions on anyone found guilty of committing such illegal practices,” he said. (ebf)