Jakarta – Security agencies should conduct a professional investigation into the fatal shooting on Saturday of Drew Nicholas Grant, an Australian working for PT Freeport in Papua, a Papuan community figure said.

"Conduct a professional investigation into the shooting and try to unveil the mystery behind it," senior Papuan community figure Yoris Raweyai said here on Saturday.

Yoris said repeated shooting incidents in the Freeport area in Papua so far had never been handled thoroughly because the investigations eventually bogged down in a mixture of political and legal matters.

"Legal matter and political matters should not be mixed up in the shooting incident," Yoris said. He added that each time a shooting incident happened in Papua, the separatist Free Papua Organization (OPM) was made a scapegoat.

"I do not agree that the stigma of OPM continues to be exposed as it has been developing since 1965. The government should have made a breakthrough to disclose the root of the problem and to find the best possible solution," Yoris said.

Therefore he called on the government to pursue a wiser policy in handling all sorts of incidents that tended to disturb the security situation in Papua.

"The government should be wise in handling the shooting incident that claimed the life of a foreigner because otherwise it will have negative implications for Indonesia," Yoris said, adding that he wondered how the shooting incident could have occurred in the Freeport area which was actually closed to outsiders.

Drew Nicholas Grant, an Australian working for the Indonesian subsidiary of US-based mining giant Freeport, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen when he was traveling with other workers, Jhon Biggs, Maju Panjaitan, and Lidan Madandan in a car from Timika to Tembagapura at 5:30 a.m. local time on Saturday.

Grant (38) was shot in the neck and chest. His body was evacuated to Tembagapura Hospital and flown back to Australia via Jakarta later on Saturday afternoon. In an attack in the Freeport area in 2002, two American teachers and an Indonesian who worked for the company were also shot dead.