Jakarta – Indonesian police in easternmost Irian Jaya province have questioned four people including a woman cleric over separatist activities, a report said here Tuesday.

The four, who have not been detained, were named as the deputy secretary of the pro-independence Papua Council Presidium, Agustinus Alua, pro-independence activist Willy Mandowen, and two women, Beatrix Koibur and Reverend Ketty Yabansabra, the state Antara news agency said.

The head of the Papua Justice Defence Team, Hendrik Tomasoa said the four were questioned at the Irian Jaya police headquarters on Monday as "witnesses", Antara reported.

Alua and Mandowen were both questioned over their involvement in the declaration of a free state of Papua during a ceremony at the house of pro-independence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay in Sentani, north of the provincial capital of Jayapura, on November 12, 1999, Tomasoa said.

Eluay and four other Praesidium leaders have been under police custody since early December with police preparing charges of subversion against them for advocating a split from Indonesia.

Alua and Mandowen were also questioned about their roles in the Papua Convention in Jayapura in February 2000, the Papua National Congress in late May and early June and the pulling down of the "Morning Star" separatist flag on December 1, 2000.

Koibur was questioned about her part in the November 12, 1999 declaration, her participation as a coordinator at the Papua Convention, her involvement in the Papua Congress and at the flag pulling down ceremony.

Yabansabra was quizzed for having led a mass during the independence declaration at Eluay's home and for her presence during the flag removal ceremony.

Yabansabra told journalists she served mass purely as a clergyman and there was no political motive. In June during a Papua Congress, the pro-independence Papua Presidium called on the Indonesian government to recognize a 1961 declaration of independence by Irian Jaya.

The people of Irian Jaya, otherwise known as West Papua, declared independence on December 1, 1961.

Eight years later the former Dutch colony became a part of Indonesia under a UN-sanctioned act of free choice, a process that Papuans say was flawed.

Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has said Jakarta will not grant Irian Jaya independence, whose people are largely Melanesian Christians, but promised to give it broad autonomy instead.