Police committee orders detention of 18 officers over Flores shooting
Yemris Fointuna Kupang
A police disciplinary committee in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, ordered 18 officers to be detained on Thursday for only six days for their role in a shooting incident last March on Flores island that killed six people.
However, the committee exonerated another low-ranking officer of all charges over the shooting in Manggarai regency, Flores.
Two of the 18 punished police officers were ordered by the committee to be held in special detention for six days, East Nusa Tenggara Police spokesman First Insp. Chusnul Waton said in Kupang.
He said the two -- Second Brig. Tausius Tanus and Brig. Piter Jhon, who were both working at a police weapons warehouse during the March 11 incident -- would also have their promotions delayed for six months.
The committee said the two and 16 other officers had forcibly opened the warehouse and took ammunition and firearms, in what they claimed was an act of self-defense, without permission from their superiors.
"They were charged with disciplinary offenses, as stipulated in Government Regulation No. 2/2003 on the code of police discipline and other rulings because they used firearms without the permission or knowledge of their superiors," Waton said.
The same committee earlier ordered the dismissal of Manggarai Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Boni Tompoi for failing to prevent the deadly violence.
On Monday, the committee imposed light sanctions on two middle-ranking officers for their role in the shooting, but acquitted local intelligence unit chief First Insp. I Made Andhika, a middle-ranking police officer, of all charges.
The two punished middle-ranking officers were given only a written reprimand and have been banned from taking part in police training courses for six months.
They were found guilty of negligence in the performance of their duty, according to the committee.
The Manggarai shootings occurred after local regent Anton Bagul Dagur ordered his subordinates to fell thousands of coffee trees in plantations belonging to local people in Colol village early in March.
There were few villagers in the area when public order officers and police personnel arrived and began cutting down the trees. The residents, who insisted that the area was ancestral land, put up resistance, but were arrested and detained at Manggarai police station.
The following day, some 400 residents turned up at the police station to protest the arrest of their seven neighbors. The demonstration turned ugly when the police refused to release the detainees, with the angry crowd attacking police personnel.
In retaliation, officers fired into the crowd, killing six people and seriously injuring 28 others.
Last month, a National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) team visited Manggarai to investigate alleged human rights abuses during the melee. However, the team has yet to announce the results of its findings.