Jakarta – Indonesia's military police chief said on Tuesday two officers from the special forces were the main suspects in last year's killing of a top Papua separatist leader.

Military prosecutors have received dossiers on seven members of the elite Kopassus as they try to solve the murder of Theys Eluay, whose body was found in his overturned car in the far eastern province last November.

"Today, we sent the files to the military prosecutors ... seven suspects in two files. The prime suspects are two middle-ranking officers," Major-General Sulaiman A.B. told reporters. "They misinterpreted orders and failed to provide security which caused the death of Theys Eluay," the military police chief said without elaborating.

Sulaiman didn't say whether the seven would face murder charges but at the very least they were now likely to go to court, something which most perpetrators of past military abuses have avoided. Kopassus has repeatedly said it did not order the killing although in April the military said troops were involved.

The charismatic Eluay, leader of the pro-independence Papua Presidium Council, was found murdered on the outskirts of the Papuan capital of Jayapura shortly after he met local army commanders. His killing emboldened already strong calls for independence among two million Papuans and dealt a blow to the government's stumbling efforts to deal with separatist demands.

The Kopassus unit earned a notorious reputation for its alleged role in the torture and abduction of dissidents during former autocrat Suharto's 32-year rule which ended in chaos in 1998.

Resource-rich Papua is one of Indonesia's two separatist hotspots, along with Aceh at the other end of the vast archipelago. Staunchly nationalist President Megawati Sukarnoputri has firmly ruled out independence for both provinces as Jakarta seeks to keep the world's most populous Muslim nation united.