Jakarta – The management of an American-based oil company denied on Tuesday that it should share the blame for human rights abuses in Aceh, the country's northern-most province.

Chief executive officer of Mobil Oil Corp., L.A. Noto, was responding to allegations by a coalition of 11 non-governmental organisations in Sumatra that military members interrogated and tortured people at some of the firm's facilities in Aceh...

Although it regretted the abuses, Noto argued that the management did not know for what purposes its facilities were used. "From time to time, both state authorities and military authorities have asked us to use some construction equipment, for roads and things like that," Noto said after meeting President B.J. Habibie at the State Palace.

"And generally speaking, we have tried to accommodate these requests.

"Beyond that, frankly, we do not have other knowledge. And ... if anything happened because somebody used the equipment in a wrong way, I am very sorry for that, but (there is) no control over that."... Noto said he had no knowledge of missing employees.