Erwin Cristianson – Army Chief of Staff Gen. Pramono Edhie Wibowo has conceded there are good reasons to suspect military officers undertook an assault on a Yogyakarta prison in which four detainees were targeted for execution-style killing.
"The temporary [investigation] shows indications of the involvement of rogue Army officials stationed in Central Java," Pramono said on Friday. The Army general added that a team of military officers have been tasked with carrying out the investigation.
"On Thursday, I signed off on [the establishment of] a team of nine, headed by the deputy commander of the military police headquarters. They are now at work. "Hopefully [the investigation] can be completed swiftly," he added.
Despite longstanding calls for reform, Indonesia's civilian authorities are not empowered to investigate and prosecute soldiers suspected of crimes against civilians. Pramono however promised that the internal investigators would coordinate with police.
Experts and human rights groups believe the assault was a revenge attack carried out by members of the military, not least because of the professional skills of the attackers, combined with the fact that the four victims were all suspected of the murder of an Army Special Forces (Kopassus) officer.
Suspicions were further confirmed when police announced that spent shell casings found at the scene were from 7.62-millimeter rounds, the caliber used in the AK-47 assault rifles issued to Kopassus.
Based on witness statements and other evidence, Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar, a spokesman for the National Police, characterized the actions of the group of 17 masked gunmen as highly disciplined and professional. "You could say that it was [well-planned] because it was carried out carefully, systematically and quickly," he said on Wednesday.
During the raid, the gunmen stormed the jail, disarmed the police officers on duty, then shot and killed four detainees who had only recently been transferred there, before taking the CCTV recordings and making a clean exit.