Police have arrested an Indonesian man who is accused of murdering Japanese tourist Rika Sano. The Japan Times reports that an Indonesian man known only as “David” was arrested by Indonesian police in Malang in East Java Province and has since been brought to Bali and is currently being held by the police in Bali.

Bali Discovery reports the suspect’s full name is: David Goltar Wicaksono and is actually 26 years old.

The suspect is originally from the town of Bandung in West Java. The suspect was employed in a cigarette factory near Ngurah Rai International Airport.

A Japanese woman’s body was found on Kuta beach yesterday afternoon, according to Tempo Interactive news site.

The body was semi-naked and some of her possessions were found with the body. The woman came to Bali with a female friend and had been seen together at her hotel, Hotel Prani in Legian, with a local Indonesian man.

Update: Just found this story from JapanToday. The tourist is identified as Rika Sano.

‘‘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 (detective unit chief at the Bali Police Headquarters), 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.

Japanese are only second to Australians in tourist numbers and are well known for how much they spend on holiday. The story is likely to be covered at length by the Japanese media, because of the brutality of the crime and the way the perpetrators allegedly posed as police officers.

Update #2: Just found another new article in the Straits Times:

‘The body was lying face down, half-naked in a bush, with only her black shirt on. We also found her mobile phone, underwear and a bag,’ he said.

‘The motive of the crime is unknown and is being investigated by our team.

We conducted an autopsy late last night but we can’t reveal the results now,’ said police spokesman I Gede Sugianyar.

The police are now denying that the perpetrator impersonated a policeman.