Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – Seven men charged with the 2002 murders of two American nationals and an Indonesian in Papua province said Tuesday they would rather die than stand trial in Jakarta.
The defendants insisted they should be tried in Timika, Papua, where the killings took place. "We don't want to be tried here. We refuse to be tried (in Jakarta) even if we have to be shot dead," said defendant Rev. Ishaq Onamawe, 54, after being forced to appear at the Central Jakarta District Court.
The other six suspects are Antonius Wamang, 30, Agustinus Anggaibak, 23, Yulianus Deikme, 26, Esau Onawame, 23, Hardi Sugumol, 34, and Yairus Kiwak, 52.
They are charged with killing US nationals Ricky Lynn Spier, 44, and Edwin Leon Burgen, 71, and their Indonesian colleague, FX Bambang Riwanto, during an armed attack near the PT Freeport Indonesia gold and copper mine in Timika.
The suspects refused to answer questions posed to them during Tuesday's trial. Judge Andriani Nurdin decided to suspend the proceedings for 30 minutes at the request of the suspects' lawyers, before adjourning the trial until Aug. 8.
The suspects were not prepared to enter their pleas at the hearing, nor were their lawyers from the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI), who skipped the previous session at the request of their clients.
"I don't know if the prosecutors made any change in the indictments when they were read out at the last session because our clients were unable to understand the contents of the indictments," chief lawyer Johnson Panjaitan told the court. Only Wamang and Ishaq speak Indonesian fluently.
At the beginning of the session Andriani pleaded with the suspects to sit in front of her as defendants, but they remained glued to their seats in the visitors' section. The police officers who had forcibly brought them into the courtroom did not move them to the defendants' chairs.
Andriani then ordered the defense lawyers to persuade them to move, but still to no avail. The Papuans instead reiterated their objection to being tried in Jakarta.
Police have said the seven suspects were all members of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), but Johnson maintained they were "just ordinary people".
Aloy Renwarin, a lawyer for Wamang, claimed earlier this year that his client admitted he had fired 30 shots during the attack on the vehicles carrying the Americans. But Wamang also implicated the military in the attack, he was quoted by AFP as saying. The seven suspects were arrested in January in an operation involving the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Wamang, the leader of the group, was allegedly an OPM commander. He was indicted for the attack by a US grand jury in 2004. All seven men could face the death penalty if convicted.
Papua-based rights groups have alleged that the military ordered the attack to ensure that Freeport would continue making large cash payments to it for security in and around the mine.