The Jakarta Post, August 02, 2006
Papuans continue protesting trial
Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Seven men charged with the 2002 murders of two American nationals and an
Indonesian in Papua province said Tuesday they would rather die than stand trial in
Jakarta.
The defendants insisted they should be tried in Timika, Papua, where the killings took
place.
"We don't want to be tried here. We refuse to be tried (in Jakarta) even if we have to
be shot dead," said defendant Rev. Ishaq Onamawe, 54, after being forced to appear
at the Central Jakarta District Court.
The other six suspects are Antonius Wamang, 30, Agustinus Anggaibak, 23,
Yulianus Deikme, 26, Esau Onawame, 23, Hardi Sugumol, 34, and Yairus Kiwak, 52.
They are charged with killing U.S. nationals Ricky Lynn Spier, 44, and Edwin Leon
Burgen, 71, and their Indonesian colleague, FX Bambang Riwanto, during an armed
attack near the PT Freeport Indonesia gold and copper mine in Timika.
The suspects refused to answer questions posed to them during Tuesday's trial.
Judge Andriani Nurdin decided to suspend the proceedings for 30 minutes at the
request of the suspects' lawyers, before adjourning the trial until Aug. 8.
The suspects were not prepared to enter their pleas at the hearing, nor were their
lawyers from the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI), who
skipped the previous session at the request of their clients.
"I don't know if the prosecutors made any change in the indictments when they were
read out at the last session because our clients were unable to understand the
contents of the indictments," chief lawyer Johnson Panjaitan told the court. Only
Wamang and Ishaq speak Indonesian fluently.
At the beginning of the session Andriani pleaded with the suspects to sit in front of
her as defendants, but they remained glued to their seats in the visitors' section.
The police officers who had forcibly brought them into the courtroom did not move
them to the defendants' chairs.
Andriani then ordered the defense lawyers to persuade them to move, but still to no
avail. The Papuans instead reiterated their objection to being tried in Jakarta.
Police have said the seven suspects were all members of the Free Papua Movement
(OPM), but Johnson maintained they were "just ordinary people".
Aloy Renwarin, a lawyer for Wamang, claimed earlier this year that his client admitted
he had fired 30 shots during the attack on the vehicles carrying the Americans. But
Wamang also implicated the military in the attack, he was quoted by AFP as saying.
The seven suspects were arrested in January in an operation involving the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Wamang, the leader of the group, was allegedly an OPM commander. He was
indicted for the attack by a U.S. grand jury in 2004. All seven men could face the
death penalty if convicted.
Papua-based rights groups have alleged that the military ordered the attack to ensure
that Freeport would continue making large cash payments to it for security in and
around the mine.
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