Police reassert stance on Newmont
Police reassert stance on Newmont
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
National Police investigators have no immediate plan to release
five PT Newmont Minahasa Raya executives, saying their detention
was needed in order to complete the case files of the suspects as
soon as possible.
"The investigators have the competence to decide whether to
detain or release suspects. We are speeding up the investigation
so as to finish the case files in the near future," National
Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Paiman announced publicly on Tuesday.
He was responding to a statement from United States Ambassador
to Indonesia Ralph L. Boyce, who has said the detention of the
American mining company's employees, one of which is a U.S.
citizen, was inappropriate.
Boyce met President Megawati Soekarnoputri on Monday to
discuss the issue and later in the day visited the Newmont
executives. The envoy, however, emphasized that Washington did
not intend to interfere in the legal process.
Police have named the five detainees, along with the company's
president Richard Ness, suspects for their roles in the alleged
pollution of Buyat Bay in North Sulawesi. The firm is accused of
dumping toxic waste into the bay, a claim Newmont has
consistently denied and backed up with tests conducted by a
number of institutions.
Paiman said the ambassador's visit would not affect the police
investigation into the case.
Police have arranged a third questioning of Ness on Thursday,
but Paiman said the investigators so far had no plan to detain
the Newmont boss due to his heart problem.
According to the Criminal Law Procedures Code, the police may
detain a suspect without charges for up to 20 days if the police
think the suspect is not being cooperative, can destroy evidence
and/or is a flight risk.
Police have said it was easier for them to question the
suspects if they were all detained as they would not have to
formally summon them each time they needed to question them.
A source at the headquarters said police locked the suspects
up for fear they would destroy evidence.
Also on Tuesday, a group of lawyers grouped under the Lawyer's
Team for Burdened People (TAPBR) held a rally at the police
station to protest Boyce's visit with Megawati and the police.
They accused Boyce of trying to intervene with the
investigation process and Indonesia's legal system.
"The visit is a clear case of intimidation by a superpower
against a poor country," said Hotman Paris Hutapea, the group's
spokesperson.