25 police officers probed

JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has questioned 25 police officers over the deaths of four students in Irian Jaya late last year, Antara reported.

The officers, including former provincial police chief Insp. Gen. Sylvanus Y. Wenas, underwent marathon questioning led by Albert Hasibuan, the chairman of a commission investigative team, the news agency quoted a report issued by the commission's secretariat.

Those questioned are suspected of being involved in shooting two students to death, torturing two other students to death, torturing hundreds of other students and destroying a student dormitory in the township of Abepura on Dec. 7 last year.

The shootings and torture took place after a group of armed Papuan separatists raided a police post in Abepura outside the capital city of Jayapura, in which two police officers and a security guard were killed.

It remained unclear whether the officers questioned could be named as suspects in the case.

The attack on the Abepura Police post and the ensuing killing of the students followed celebrations by proindependence Irian Jayans to mark the unrecognized December 1, 1961 declaration of Papuan independence from the Dutch colony.

Separately, a member of the Komnas HAM's investigative team, Alberth Rumbekwan, said the commission was finalizing its report of the incident.

Based on the report the Attorney General's Office could begin formal investigation into the alleged human right abuse.

Natural resource-righ Irian Jaya, also known locally as West Papua, is home to some 250 Melanesian tribes.

Supporters of independence maintain that a UN-sponsored plebiscite in 1969, which affirmed Indonesian sovereignty over the province, was flawed and unrepresentative. (edt)