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Japan | Hakamada found religion, but then felt under attack by ‘the devil’

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Editor's note: This is the last in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. About a decade after cursing God, Iwao Hakamada was baptized Catholic at the Tokyo Detention House on Dec. 24, 1984. “Since I have been given the Christian name Paul, I am keenly feeling that I should be aware of the greatness of Paul.” (June 1985)

Indonesia: Anti-Narcotics Agents Make 800kg Meth Bust in Jakarta, arrest 9, including 5 foreigners

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Meth bust in Indonesia (file photo)
Jakarta. Indonesian anti-narcotics officials have seized 800 kilograms of methamphetamine and arrested nine people, including five foreigners, in one of the biggest drug busts in recent years.

Agents from the National Narcotics Agency, or BNN, discovered the drugs in a truck in the parking lot of a supermarket in West Jakarta on Monday, during a raid based on tips gleaned from informants.

“We carried out the raid when the goods were being transferred” from the truck to a pickup truck, Sr. Comr. Sumirat Dwiyanto, a spokesman for the BNN, said on Monday as quoted by Tempo.co.

The raid took place in the parking lot of the Lotte Mart supermarket in Taman Surya, West Jakarta, at about 1:30 p.m. on Monday. BNN agents discovered 40 sacks inside the truck, each one stuffed with 20 one-kilogram packages of meth.

The individual packages were disguised as bags of coffee.

BNN agents have arrested nine people in connection with the raid, including four Chinese nationals and one Malaysian. The four others are Indonesian.

Sumirat said the drugs were suspected to have come from Guangzhou in southern China and were brought over by ship.

“In the middle of the sea, they transferred the drugs to a fishing boat,” he added.

He said the contraband arrived in Indonesia through the small fishing port of Dadap in Tangerang, on the outskirts of Jakarta. From there, it was loaded into the truck and driven to the Lotte Mart parking lot, where the traffickers had intended to move some of it to a pickup truck for distribution.

Sumirat said the alleged mastermind of the trafficking attempt was a Chinese man who had lived in Indonesia for 15 years. All the suspects face drug-trafficking charges that carry the death penalty.

Source: Jakarta Globe, January 6, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com
Location: Indonesia
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