Michael Bachelard – Police in West Papua say the independence activist they killed in the streets last week was carrying the same gun used to shoot a German tourist last month.

But the police spokesman, Senior Commissioner Johannes Nugroho, confirmed the weapon was a police-issue Taurus.

"Mako Tabuni did have a gun with him and it belonged to the police. They [the Free Papua Movement independence group] stole it but I don't remember when," Commissioner Nugroho told the Herald yesterday.

Mr Tabuni was the deputy chairman of the West Papua National Committee, which is agitating for independence from Indonesia, and his death on Thursday prompted rioting and a security crackdown in the already restive province.

In the police version of events, Mr Tabuni was threatening to shoot a police officer who had tried to arrest him. Witnesses have said he was unarmed and was shot as he tried to run away.

Commissioner Nugroho said Mr Tabuni and unnamed others were responsible for the non-fatal shooting of a German tourist, Pieter Dietmar Helmut, at a beach in the capital Jayapura on May 29, as well as other mysterious shootings.

Police were sure the independence activist was the gunman because the pistol they allegedly found on him would be revealed as the same weapon used to shoot the German, Commissioner Nugroho said.

But he said Mr Helmut's wife could not positively identify Mr Tabuni because he "is already buried". He also hinted there would be more arrests.

"If we manage to capture Mako's friends, people will then know who did all the violence. [Tabuni] is obviously the one ... After he was killed the police checked his house and found lots of things such as cocktail bombs, guns, machetes, arrows ... a wallet belonging to a driver who was killed the other day and whose car was set on fire."

But the chairman of Baptist Churches in Papua, Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman, said Mr Tabuni was a "humble man" and an intellectual. Mr Yoman said the Indonesian police and military were acting as agent provocateurs in West Papua to bolster their own position.

"They create conflict so that they need [to be given] more money," he said. "They want more troops in West Papua. They want to [commit] genocide [against] the Papuan [people]."

He said the police had gunned down the unarmed Mr Tabuni as he tried to escape their arrest attempt. Mr Yoman's nephew, a witness to the shooting, said he had been shot "like an animal" and that the "police are like criminals".

"Recently the situation in West Papua is like a war. There are more military and police ... on every corner looking and watching the local people. There is no freedom of life in West Papua," Mr Yoman said.