Police 'didn't use live ammunition at Trisakti'

JAKARTA (JP): The mystery of who fired the fatal shots in the May 12 death of four Trisakti University students slowly began to unfold yesterday when the National Commission on Human Rights said police did not use live ammunition.

"The commission has obtained strong indications that the police... did not use live ammunition," commission member Djoko Soegianto told journalists here yesterday.

A statement read by the commission's secretary-general, Baharuddin Lopa, said the commission also suspected that a number of people had remained missing since the incident.

The commission, however, failed to elaborate on either of its findings.

It was not reluctant to point out that several witnesses to the incident had been threatened and now refused to give testimony, originally slated for Tuesday.

"They were threatened by unidentified people forbidding them to give testimony to anyone," the statement said.

The commission, therefore, urged the special military investigating team to the Trisakti incident to guarantee the students' safety.

The threats are clearly hampering the investigation and impeding the search for the truth behind the shootings, it said adding that with their testimony further light could be shed on who exactly fired the fatal shots against the students and how the whole incident transpired into the tragedy that it did.

Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto said on May 15 that the special military team set up to investigate the shootings found that security forces had used live ammunition.

Wiranto revealed Monday that 14 Armed Forces personnel had been implicated in the shootings. But he refused to reveal their identities, adding only that "a few members from another unit" were also found to have taken "non-procedural and undisciplined action" during the incident.

Four demonstrators were killed when shots were fired as students from Trisakti University held a pro-reform demonstration in front of their campus. Both police and military personnel were assigned to handle the demonstration.

The incident triggered widespread riots and looting in Jakarta leaving some 500 dead and causing over Rp 2.5 trillion in material losses.

Besides the death of four students, the commission said three others -- economics students Ferro Prasetya and Tammu Abraham Alexander Bulo and geology student Sofyan Rahman -- were seriously wounded and remained in the hospital.

A crisis team set up by Djuanda University said nine students remained missing following a bloody clash between students and security forces at the university campus in Bogor, West Java, on May 9.

A report from the team submitted to the commission Saturday said three students were still being detained following the clash.

The incident resulted in the death of a police officer who was killed after repeated blows to the head. (byg)