Team blames officers for shooting

JAKARTA (JP): An independent fact-finding team probing the Sept. 24 incident when shots were fired into a crowd of protesters said on Monday security personnel were responsible for the fatal shooting.

The team, consisting of activists, lawyers and university employees, demanded officials from the Indonesian Military, the National Police and the government be held accountable for the Friday shooting, which claimed the lives of at least four people, including a university student.

"There's a significant correlation between (the incident) and the TNI and police being trained by their superiors to use violence in dealing with protesters," team chairman Hermawan Sulistyo, who is also a political scientist with the National Institute of Sciences, said.

"No information or evidence, including of another car following the military trucks passing the scene of the shooting, could be found which would lead to the conclusion that the shootings were committed by parties other than security personnel," he said.

Team member M. Rifki Moena said: "People in the (alleged) van would not dare fire at the people massed along Jl. Sudirman because there were also security personnel at the scene."

Hermawan said two convoys of between seven and eight trucks carrying security personnel passed along the street some 10 minutes apart, adding that the shooting which took University of Indonesia student Yap Yun Hap's life took place as the first convoy passed.

Minutes before this shooting, a number of people -- reportedly in a Kijang minivan -- fired shots at the Australian Embassy on Jl. Rasuna Said in South Jakarta, some three kilometers away from the shooting on Jl. Sudirman.

Hermawan also said his team would continue its investigation to uncover the facts behind the deaths of Salim, Fadly and Denny Yulian, who were shot dead at different location on Jl. Sudirman on Friday evening.

The team includes Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation chairman Bambang Widjoyanto, Committee for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence coordinator Munir, the head of Trisakti University's Research Institution, Dadan Umar Daihani, and University of Indonesia sociologist Tamrin Amal Tomagola.

Hermawan said his team urged the government to appoint independent parties to probe the shooting to ensure the results of the investigation were impartial.

If the government fails to bring the responsible parties to court, the team will seek assistance from the International Court of Justice to settle the case, he said.

Jakarta Police chief Maj. Gen. Noegroho Djajoesman said on Saturday the shots were fired randomly from a Kijang van which was following the security personnel trucks on Jl. Sudirman.

The two-star general also said the victim was killed by a rubber bullet.

However, doctors at Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital reportedly said Yun Hap, who was sitting near a bus stop between Plaza Sentral and Atma Jaya University with scores of people was killed by a live bullet from a .22 caliber firearm fired from a distance.

Hermawan said the police's version of the shooting was unlikely because the convoys of military trucks passing on the street at the time of the shooting were going the wrong way down the street.

"No private car dared drive on the street with such traffic coming in the opposite direction, except vehicles belonging to security personnel," he said at the Jakarta Design Center in Slipi, Central Jakarta. (asa/ylt)