Farouk Armaz – Police on Wednesday said that four military officers had been named as suspects in connection with an overloaded boat carrying asylum seekers that sank off the coast of East Java last month.
"From our investigation we have been able to name more suspects," National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution said.
Saud identified the five new suspects as Chief Sgt. K.A., Second Sgt. K.N., Second Sgt. I.A.S., Chief Cpl. K. and a civil servant named B.S. The officers, he said, were from the East Java Military Command and were now in the custody of the East Java Military Police.
The Military Police will take the case to the military court, where the officers will be charged according to the Military Criminal Code.
The police spokesman said the soldiers had been providing security and transportation for the asylum seekers. Saud did not specify where B.S. is detained and what role the civil servant played in the people-smuggling scheme.
At least 95 people were confirmed dead after a boat carrying more than 200 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan succumbed to bad weather and sank off the coast of Trenggalek district. The asylum seekers were believed to be headed to Australia.
Police earlier had named four people, all civilians, as suspects: two are believed to have provided the boat, while the others were the crew members.
Rescuers have pulled 49 survivors out of the water, including the boat's two crew members. The survivors were placed in a special detention facility in the East Java town of Bangil.
East Java police said 30 detainees fled on Monday night through a tunnel they dug themselves, but police managed to capture 11 of them the following day in a province-wide search.
Authorities said they believed a further 100 might still be missing based on the accounts of survivors who told police that before they boarded the boat they were being transported by four buses with 60 passengers each.
Asylum seekers often pass through Indonesia to connect with people smugglers and board boats headed for Australia's Christmas Island, which is closer to Indonesian territory than mainland Australia.
Last month's capsizing constitutes ones of the largest losses of life from a single sinking of one of the many boats packed with Asian and Middle Eastern migrants who undertake the perilous voyage.