Two policemen arrested for people-smuggling
Two policemen arrested for people-smuggling
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
National Police Chief Gen. Surojo Bimantoro said on Friday
that two police brigadiers in Riau had been arrested for
illegally helping Middle Eastern boatpeople.
The police are also tracking down another four people they
believe are the masterminds behind people-smuggling throughout
Indonesia, he said.
"The Riau police chief has told me the two brigadiers were
involved (in illegally helping boatpeople)," he told journalists
after meeting with President Megawati Soekarnoputri.
He said the two detained police officers had been escorting
the illegal migrants and were not part of the syndicate.
Bimantoro rejected survivors' claims that police had forced
the mostly Iraqi refugees at gunpoint to board the vessel, which
sank in the Java Sea last Friday, killing over 374 of the 418 on
board.
The survivors' claims have sparked strong reactions from the
Australian government. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has
demanded that the Indonesian police investigate the incident.
It had been reported earlier that the boat had sailed from
Lampung in South Sumatra, but Lampung police chief Brig. Gen.
Sugiri said the boat was likely to have set sail from Karang
Bolong, in the western Java province of Banten.
Bimantoro said that, of the four people still at large, two
were Indonesian, one Malaysian and one Iraqi. "We need
coordination with other countries because it involves
foreigners."
Bimantoro said that the arrival of illegal immigrants from
Middle Eastern countries in Indonesian territories was arranged
by international syndicates.
Indonesia has become a favorite transit point for boatpeople
heading for Australia and America, taking advantage of its vast
territory and slack coastal supervision.
Earlier this week, the Australia government asked Indonesia to
extradite an Egyptian man believed to have arranged last week's
disastrous journey of asylum-seekers.
In a related development, four Indonesian people-smugglers
have each been jailed for six years in Australia for bringing 231
asylum-seekers to the Australian territory of Christmas Island,
in the Indian Ocean, in June.
The penalties were imposed on Thursday night by Judge Alton
Jackson in the District Court in South Hedland, a coastal town in
Western Australia's north-west.
AFP reported that Dahlan, 40, Alimuddin Bin Binggala, 31,
Andiman, 33, and Yopi Koto, 21, all from Sulawesi, pleaded guilty
to a charge of intent to bring non-citizens to Australia
illegally.
In Jakarta, about 100 asylum seekers--mostly from
Iraq--demonstrated at the United Nations High Commissioner on
Refugees (UNHCR) offices, demanding better treatment.
A minor incident occurred when security guards blocking their
entry to the office scuffled with the protesters. They were
asylum seekers accommodated in Bogor, south of Jakarta.
They unfurled posters detailing their demands. One read:
"Hurry... hurry help our children are waiting."