The Jakarta Post, 2/15/2005 11:36:58 AM
Two killed in karaoke club shooting in restive Ambon
AMBON, Maluku (AFP): Gunmen shot dead two people in an attack overnight on a
karaoke club in the sectarian violence-plagued city of Ambon in eastern Indonesia,
police and a witness said on Tuesday.
Witness Henrik Manduapessy told journalists here that a group of armed men in two
speedboats landed in Hative in Ambon's Baguala subdistrict and opened fire on the
open-air club.
The shooting sparked panic among guests and left a man and a woman dead and
another man wounded, he said.
The Hative area is a predominantly Christian area but one of the dead, the woman,
was a Muslim, Manduapessy said.
Maluku police spokesman Hendro Prasetyo said he believed the assailants had fled
the area.
He said that about 25 spent bullet casings believed to have been fired from automatic
rifles were found at the scene of the attack.
Ambon and some other parts of the Maluku islands were ravaged by three years of
Muslim-Christian clashes that killed more than 5,000 people before a February 2002
peace pact took effect.
But sporadic violence has continued and tension between the two communities has
remained high in Ambon and several of its surrounding small islands.
Maluku province Police Chief Brigadier General Adityawarman told journalists here
that he believed the latest attack may have been linked to an incident three days
earlier in which a Muslim man was killed.
A policeman has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out that shooting. (**)
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