Papuan separatist leader breaks out of jail
Papuan separatist leader breaks out of jail
Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura
The Police have deployed hundreds of personnel to Indonesia's
border area with Papua New Guinea (PNG) to prevent Papua's most
wanted man, Benny Wenda, from escaping to the neighboring country
after he escaped from jail on Sunday.
Benny, whose trial is still ongoing at the district court,
where he is charged with masterminding the attack on the Abepura
police station and burned two shops in the small township on Dec.
7, 2000, escaped the Abepura prison along with another inmate
Lazarus Walela early on Sunday.
Brig. Gen. Raziman Tarigan, deputy chief of the Papua
Provincial Police said here on Wednesday that the police would
continue to hunt for the fugitive so they could resume the trial.
Raziman said he believed the two escapees were still hiding
some place inside or outside of Abepura, "and that is why we've
deployed our personnel to the border area to prevent them from
escaping to PNG."
Soedarsono, head of the Abepura prison, confirmed on Tuesday
that Benny, along with Lazarus, escaped through a prison
bathroom.
"They broke the bathroom's ceiling and its ventilation to get
out of the prison. The escape occurred early on Sunday," he said.
He explained that Benny was put in the prison on the order of
the Abepura District Court while he was being tried for his
alleged role in the Dec. 7, 2000 attacks.
"The incident occurred when some 50 Papuan people, led by
Benny, attacked the police station and torched two shops. A
policeman was killed in the attack and a security guard was found
dead near the shopping compound," he said.
Benny is the younger brother of Mathias Wenda, the field
commander of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) allegedly operating on
the Indonesian-PNG border area.
The two brothers helped evacuate some 500 Papuans to the
central highlands of Jayawijaya because they felt unsafe in
Jayapura city with its heavy military control. Last December, the
Papuan group was believed to be behind the killing of six workers
in a sawmill in the area.
Following the attacks, the local police and military conducted
a bloody raid on houses which were suspected as the attackers'
hiding places. Four people, all students, were killed during the
raids.
The killing sparked protests and criticism from numerous
sides, including human rights organizations, with an increasing
demand for the police to investigate the killing they called
serious human rights abuses. No investigations ever commenced.
Benny's lawyer Yohannes G. Bonay said the Dec. 7 attack and
the subsequent raid where the students were killed must be
separated because the first case was a simple criminal case while
the second was a human rights violations.
"If my client Benny Wenda is found guilty in court, the
killing of the four students must be investigated and the
perpetrators brought to trial," he said.
A.B. Aronggear, chief of the local Justice and human rights
office, said that he had set up a team to investigate Soedarsono
because of the two detainees' escape, as there seemed to be some
suspicion surrounding the circumstances.