A 33-year-old female Japanese tourist was found dead Monday in the Indonesian resort island of Bali, with injuries to her body raising suspicions of murder, according to local reports Tuesday.
Wilmar Marpaung, detective unit chief at the Bali Police Headquarters, said the body of Rika Sano was found at 4 p.m. Monday in a thicket of bushes on Mertahadi Street in the Kuta beach resort area.
Private television networks Trans7 and Surya Citra Televisi reported that Sano's body was discovered after local residents noticed a foul smell.
Her body was found half-naked with signs of injuries, with her underwear, cellular phone, cosmetics and other belongings scattered around, raising suspicions that she was robbed and raped before being murdered, according to the reports.
Police also found a wood log, which might have been used to beat and kill the woman from Tokyo, Marpaung said.
Marpaung, however, refused to speculate on the cause of death.
"We are still investigating the cause of her death. So far, I can only say that she was the victim of violence," he said, adding her body is being kept at the Sanglah General Hospital for an autopsy.
According to Marpaung, Sano checked into the Prani Hotel in Kuta with her friend Mayumi Someya, 30, on Thursday night, and at around 2:30 a.m. Friday, a man claiming to be a policeman led her away from her hotel.
According to the online news portal Tempo Interaktif, the man showed police identification and a badge to the hotel's security officer and said Sano was a drug trafficker.
The man drove away from the hotel on a motorcycle with Sano riding on the back, but an hour later he came back alone and took her two bags away.
Marpaung said the man could have been posing as a policeman, but added "we are still checking the information."
Meanwhile, Gde Alit Widana, chief of the Denpasar police headquarters in the Bali provincial capital of Denpasar, told Kyodo News that more than one perpetrator may have been involved.
"So far, we have been questioning four people," Widana said, without elaborating whether the four are witnesses or suspects.
Photographs of suspects have been shown to Someya in an attempt identify the perpetrators, he added.