Jakarta. Three Indonesian nationals have been arrested in Japan for allegedly murdering their compatriot, a Foreign Affairs Ministry official said on Wednesday.

The suspects, whose identities have not been disclosed, are accused of murdering a man on December 30, 2021.

“The body of the victim, believed to be a male, was stuffed in a suitcase and dumped on a roadside in the city of Tamura, the prefecture of Fukushima,” Judha Nugraha, the ministry’s director of Indonesian citizen protection, told Antara news agency.

The local police have notified the Indonesian Embassy in Tokyo about the ongoing murder investigation, he added.

The embassy is asking for consular access to legal assistance for the suspects, Judha said.

His statement came after Twitter user @kevinpramudya posted a report about the murder case.

The Twitter user said that according to news reports by Japanese broadcasters, the suspects and the victim worked in the same company in Japan and stayed in the city of Konosu, in the prefecture of Saitama.

The victim allegedly came from the Central Java regency of Pati. He was murdered in December 2021 but the body was hidden somewhere until the murderers stuffed it in a suitcase and dumped it last month, the Twitter user wrote citing local TV reports.

But Judha said the ministry is awaiting results from the investigation to confirm the identities of the suspects and the victim.