New reason for Timika shooting

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)