Rights body urged to probe Theys' death
Rights body urged to probe Theys' death
Agencies, Jakarta
Chairman of the Papua provincial legislature John Ibo urged the
National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on Tuesday to
set up an independent team to investigate last year's murder of
independence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay.
The establishment of an independent team from Komnas HAM would
demonstrate Jakarta's intention to uphold justice, John Ibo said.
"I think the establishment of an independent team comes as the
first choice in unraveling Theys' murder and other human rights
violations in Papua," John Ibo was quoted by Antara as saying on
Tuesday.
He admitted that the military police were still questioning a
number of Kopassus members as suspects in Theys' death but
insisted that the Papuan people wanted Komnas HAM to form an
independent investigation team as they considered the murder to
be a gross violation of human rights.
Instead of forming a team from the human rights commission,
Jakarta established the National Investigation Commission (NIC),
to which Ibo was appointed a member.
Eluay was found dead in his car on Nov. 11 last year. He had
been abducted by armed men the previous evening while driving
home from a ceremony at the headquarters of the Tribuana military
taskforce, which consists largely of Kopassus special force
members in Jayapura, the capital of Papua.
In May, Ibo and another NIC member, Karel Phil Erari, said
three Kopassus members were aided by a number of lower-ranking
soldiers, paid by their superiors, to execute Theys.
National military police chief Major General A.B. Sulaiman
said last week that seven Kopassus soldiers would soon face a
court-martial for their alleged involvement in Theys' death.
Sulaiman had previously been quoted in June as saying that
nine soldiers would stand trial in July.
One of the officers questioned in the military police
investigation said that Eluay died suddenly, possibly from shock,
while being questioned by soldiers.
But an earlier autopsy determined that Eluay, who headed the
peaceful proindependence Papua Presidium Council, had died of
suffocation. His body was found in his crashed car with the face
darkened and tongue protruding.
The military said some members of the Army's elite Kopassus
force serving in the Tribuana command might have been involved in
the murder.
A low-level armed struggle for independence began after the
Dutch ceded control of the resource-rich territory to Indonesia
in 1963.
The province, formerly known as Irian Jaya, was renamed Papua
this year under an autonomy law that promised a much greater
share of revenue from natural resources and respect for local
culture.