Trisakti team to HK for another ballistics test

JAKARTA (JP): A fact-finding team looking into the May 1998 Trisakti incident will soon leave for Hong Kong to follow the final process of ballistics tests before the case involving the shooting of four Trisakti University students could be brought before a military tribunal, a member of the team said on Tuesday.

Usman Hamid said the team, which is headed by Col. Hendardji who was the Jakarta military police chief at the time of the incident, would ask a private ballistics examiner agency in Hong Kong to conduct further ballistics tests.

"The agency's executives can also testify in the military court to explain their ballistics report," said Usman, who also chairs the Trisakti University Student Presidium (PMUT) fact- finding team.

He said Hendardji's team, whose members are from the PMUT, the Indonesian Police central forensics laboratory (Puslabfor), the Indonesia military police, the metallurgy laboratory of the Bandung Institute of Technology and state Pindad military equipment-maker, decided to go to Hong Kong after a similar test conducted in Canada proved insufficient.

He said experts of the Canadian Forensic Technologies WAI Inc., which conducted ballistics tests on three bullets related to the shooting incident, had refused to testify in court.

"The Canadian firm refused to further involve itself in the country's internal matters, saying it was just a producer of ballistics equipment and tests," Usman, who also oversaw the tests in Canada from May 18 to May 21 this year, said.

He said the experts from Hong Kong ballistics examiner agency could explain to the military court the results of ballistics tests conducted by the Canadian firm.

"We will soon leave for Hong Kong. We are just waiting for Pak Hendardji who is presently in Japan," Usman told reporters at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute.

He said the tests on the bullets, two of which were taken from the dead bodies of students Hendriawan Sie and Hari Hartanto revealed that the bullets were fired from SS-1 and Steyr AUG-P rifles.

The May 12 shooting incident sparked massive riots in the city in the following days, followed by the forced resignation of president Soeharto on May 21.

In August last year, a military tribunal sentenced one police officer to 10 months in jail and another to four months for ordering their men to shoot into a crowd of student demonstrators.

At the institute office on Tuesday, Usman and several activists declared the establishment of Solidaritas Korban Kekerasan Negara (Victims of State Violence Solidarity).

The organization urged the government to continue investigating and reveal several past tragedies which claimed lives.(jun)