Dicky Christanto, Jakarta – The military should conduct an independent investigation to prove its personnel were not involved in the killing of political activists in Aceh as accused by US journalist Allan Nairn, activists said Friday.

"We strongly encourage the military to cooperate with the police in conducting a thorough examination into the allegations. They could summon Allan to testify and support his allegations," Usman Hamid of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) told a press conference in Friday.

"The military needs to do that to avoid losing face. They have to be able to prove they are innocent in this case," he added.

Otto Samsudin Ishak, a senior researcher from human rights NGO Imparsial, also spoke at the press conference, saying the police could take the initiative in conducting the investigation.

"If the police find indications of military involvement they could then hand the suspects over to the military police for processing," he said.

He said it was reprehensible that neither the military nor the police had taken such an initiative. Denying Allan's allegation without conducting thorough investigation into the case will only spark speculations, he added.

"I am afraid there might have been an agreement between the police, the military and the Aceh local administration to not probe the killings due to concerns it might implicate those institutions," he said.

Nairn, a freelance journalist, wrote in his personal blog that military personnel from the special forces division, known as Kopassus, had murdered eight political activists during the regional election in Aceh last year.

"The killings were part of a secret government program authorized by Jakarta, and were coordinated in part by an active-duty, US-trained Kopassus special forces General who has acknowledged on record that his TNI men had a role in the killings," he said.

Allan claimed in his report that he had received highly sensitive information from several military officials who asked for anonymity.

The activists belonged to the Aceh Party, a political party that was formed by former members of separatist group Free Aceh Movement. According to Nairn, the activists were killed to prevent them from bringing up the issue of Aceh independence during the elections.

Among those activists was Tumijan, a plantation worker at Nagan Raya, Aceh, whose body was found near a river. His body had been mutilated and his throat cut. Another activist, Dedi Novandi, was shot in the middle of a street in Aceh.

Nairn said these killings were orchestrated by a group of young Kopassus officers along with their local militants.

Commenting on this, Kopassus Chief Maj. Gen. Lodewijk Freidrich Paulus denied Kopassus' involvement, saying that the unit had not been assigned to Aceh since the reform movement in 1998. The military is also considering filing a legal complaint against Nairn, who played down the threat.

"In today's Indonesia it can be a crime to report assassinations, but, given that no generals have gone to prison for such murders, it is not treated as a crime to commit them," Nairn said on his blog.