Jakarta – A three-member Amnesty International team is headed for the remote Indonesian province of Papua to carry out human rights work and investigate alleged rights violations, a rights group in the province said Saturday.

One of the mission's main aims was to "monitor the latest development in the murder case of Mr. Theys Hiyo Eluay," said Alo Renwarin of the Institute for Advocacy and Human Rights (Elsham).

The three – Amnesty's Asia Pacific program director Gerry Fox, Lucia Withers and Signe Poulsen – are scheduled to arrive in the capital of Jayapura on Sunday for a 14-day visit to the province, formerly known as Irian Jaya, Renwarin told AFP.

Pro-independence leader Eluay was found dead on November 11 after being abducted the previous evening by an unidentified group as he drove home from a Heroes' Day celebration hosted by a Kopassus special army unit in Jayapura.

The local police chief and others have said there are indications – but no evidence – that some members of the Kopassus unit may have had a role in the murder.

Activists have called for an independent inquiry, saying police investigations are going too slowly. The army chief of staff, General Endriartono Sutarto, has vowed not to protect any officers implicated in Eluay's murder.

Eluay's driver, who escaped and reported the abduction by what he called non-Papuan people, has since disappeared.

After questioning at least seven Kopassus members over the killing, police have admitted they have hit a dead end in their inquiries.

The London-based rights group decided to visit Papua because it had "extensive information about recent human rights violations such as arbitrary killings and torture" in the province, Renwarin said.

The group had also notified provincial and central government officials about their trip. "They had sent official letters to the foreign affairs and defence ministries as well as to the attorney general's office, the national police and Papua provincial leaders," he said.

The three rights workers would also investigate rights violations allegedly carried out by the separatist Free Papua Movement rebel group.

A sporadic low-level armed struggle for independence began after the Dutch ceded control of the territory to Indonesia in 1963. The province was renamed Papua this month under an autonomy law designed to lessen pressure for independence.