Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – The Central Jakarta District Court told prosecutors Tuesday to use force to get seven suspects in the 2002 killing of two US nationals and an Indonesian in Papua province to court for indictment.
"Because they have twice refused to come, we will bring them here by force as stipulated in the Criminal Law Procedures Code," said presiding judge Andriani Nurdin, adding that the third session of the trial would be held on July 18.
Payaman, one of the prosecutors, told the court his team had been unable to get the seven suspects into court because they insisted that the trial be held in Timika, Papua, where the killing took place. The suspects are being held at National Police headquarters.
The seven suspects are Antonius Wamang, Agustinus Anggaibak, Yulianus Deikme, Ishak Onawe, Esau Onawame, Hardi Sugumol and Yairus Kiwak. They were arrested in January in an operation involving the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The suspects' lawyer, Johnson Panjaitan, told The Jakarta Post that his clients would continue to refuse to appear at the Jakarta court because they believed that their case should be heard in Papua.
"They believe that the trial would be more just if held in Timika," he told the Post, adding some Papuans had pleaded with the provincial court and prosecutors' office to hold the trial there. He emphasized that the law stipulates that a case should be tried in the region where the crime took place.
The prosecutors said the trial was moved from the Timika court to Jakarta for security reasons.
The killing took place in August last year when Wamang and the six other suspects allegedly ambushed a convoy of Freeport Indonesia employees at Mile 62, about halfway between Timika and the American-owned Freeport copper and gold mine in Tembagapura, one of the largest in the world.
American teachers Ted Burcon and Rickey Spear and Indonesian Bambang Riwanto died in the attack. Twelve other people, seven of them Americans, sustained injuries.
Wamang, who was indicted by a US grand jury in 2004 for the attack, and the other six suspects face possible death sentences for premeditated murder and weapons possession.