New reason for Timika shooting

JAKARTA (JP): Armed Forces (ABRI) Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung said yesterday that the soldier who shot dead 16 people, mostly soldiers, in Irian Jaya in April was suffering "mental stress", not tropical malaria as originally stated by a preliminary investigation.

According to Feisal, Second Lt. Sanurip started shooting after his request to help take the bodies of two soldiers from Timika to Sorong was rejected.

But in April, quoting the findings of a preliminary investigation, ABRI's general affairs chief Lt. Gen. Soeyono said the trigger-happy soldier was temporarily deranged by a bout of malaria when he indiscriminately shot people at the Timika airport hangar.

Sanurip had just completed his night shift at the Timika hangar when he approached the Twin Otter airplane which was to take the soldiers' bodies. He was told to go away because the bodies' freight had already been arranged.

"Then Sanurip opened fire on the people around him. He was overpowered after being shot in the leg," Feisal said at a hearing of the House of Representatives' Commission I on security.

The death toll rose to 19 when four more victims died in hospital several days after the incident.

Sanurip has been psychologically and medically examined and will be brought before a military tribunal, he said. (pan)