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Indonesia Names 72 Suspects Over Deliberately Set Fires in Nine Provinces

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Courtroom-sketch editorial illustration of Indonesian police officials at a press table as the central officer displays a tablet with aerial fire-damage evidence, rendered in warm ochre and slate-blue pastel strokes.

Indonesia's National Police said on Sunday they had named 72 individual suspects in 89 forest and land fire cases handled by nine provincial commands, among them Riau, West Kalimantan, South Sumatra, Jambi and Aceh. Brigadier General Mohammad Irhamni, who directs special crimes at the Bareskrim criminal investigation agency, said most suspects burned land deliberately because clearing it that way is cheaper for planting. Investigators seized fuel in bottles and jerrycans, 21 machetes, two chainsaws, oil palm seedlings and burned soil samples. The prosecuted cases cover 1,006.67 hectares, while police put the national burned area at 64,341 hectares, 62 percent of it now extinguished.

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