The Jakarta Post, 9/11/2002 10:21:54 PM
Poso Christian leader arrested
JAKARTA: The Rev. Rinaldy Damanik, from the Central Sulawesi district of Poso, was
arrested late on Tuesday at the National Police Headquarters for carrying guns in the
car he was traveling in, his lawyer Johnson Panjaitan said as quoted by AFP on
Wednesday.
The lawyer said the police were deciding whether to charge him for illegal weapons
possession.
Police reportedly found 14 homemade guns and ammunition in a car in which
Damanik was traveling in his native province of Central Sulawesi on Aug. 17.
Damanik has disputed the claim, saying that when the police allegedly found the
weapons, he was some 50 meters away and had only read about the weapons in
press reports quoting police.
"We came here yesterday (Tuesday) to honor a police summons for the
reverend to be questioned as witness, but after a meeting at eight in the
evening, they suddenly told us that an arrest warrant had been issued for the
reverend as a suspect in the case," Pandjaitan said.
Damanik was questioned the whole day Tuesday, with most of the questions centered
around the Christian Synod in Central Sulawesi of which Damanik is the
secretary-general.
Damanik last month suggested that the police planted weapons in his car as a
pretext to detain him. The Christian leader has been a critic of police conduct in the
province in the past.
He was a signatory of a state-sponsored agreement in December that ended more
than two years of intermittent clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Poso
area.
Between 500 and 1,000 people were killed and tens of thousands made homeless.
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