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.