Jakarta – Pro-independence leader Don Flassy has been arrested and is now detained in Indonesia's remote Irian Jaya province, a justice official said Tuesday.

"Don Flassy was arrested after he turned himself in, accompanied by five lawyers, to our office yesterday around 11 in the morning," the head of the Irian Jaya prosecutor's office, Y.M. Tahya told AFP by telephone from Jayapura, the capital of Irian Jaya.

He said that Flassy, one of five pro-independence leaders on trial for subversion, had turned himself in after a visit to neighbouring Papau New Guinea (PNG).

"His arrest follows the decision of the panel of judges at the Jayapura district court dated June 18," Tahya said. "He is now at the state jail in Abepura," he added.

Flassy last month sought permission from the judges trying him at the state court in Jayapura to go to Jakarta for medical treatment. The demand was granted, but the Indonesian embassy in PNG, which shares a land border with Irian Jaya, later told authorities in Jayapura that the defendant had been sighted in Vanimo, PNG.

Flassy and four other members of the pro-independence Papua Praesidium, including chairman Theys Eluay, are being tried for subversion for advocating independence from Indonesia. Eluay is receiving medical treatment in Jakarta while the three others, Reverend Herman Awom, John Mambor and Thaha Al Hamid are in Jayapura. Tahya said that the date for the resumption of Flassy's trial has yet to be set by the judges.

All five Praesidium members, who use the locally-preferred name of Papua for Irian Jaya, were detained shortly after the December 1, 2000 anniversary of an unrecognised 1961 declaration of Papuan independence. They have since been released.

Prosecutors have said that a Papua People's Congress, organized by the Papua Praesidium in May-June 2000 was subversive because it had concluded with a demand that Jakarta recognize the province's sovereignty.

Irian Jaya's independence movement gained momentum last year under Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid's liberal approach, but authorities abandoned tolerance after the congress with a tough, sometimes brutal crackdown. The crackdown included the arrest and charging of the five Papua Praesidium members.

A former Dutch colony, Irian Jaya was integrated into Indonesia in 1969 by a UN referendum which pro-independence leaders consider flawed and unrepresentative.