Papuans charged for vandalizing court

Source : The Jakarta Post

Jakarta Police charged five Papuans as suspects Thursday for causing malicious damage at the Anticorruption Court offices in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.

They were among more than 100 supporters of Lukas Enembe and Arobi Achmad Aituaraw, the losing candidates for governor and deputy governor in the recent Papua gubernatorial election.

They ran amok, smashing window panes and furniture after the Supreme Court refused to overturn the victory of Barnabas Suebu and Alexander Hassegem, whom the protesters alleged rigged the election.

""We did not detain them because they were very cooperative,"" said the chief of the general crimes unit, Adj. Sr. Comr. Firli Bahuri, on Thursday.

A group of police officers from the South Jakarta Police arrested the five during a raid Wednesday on a villa in Cisarua, about 90 kilometers south of Jakarta. The police also seized a laptop computer and some banners during the raid.

Lukas and his supporters accused Barnabas and Alex of rigging the vote by concealing ballot boxes from Yahukimo regency officers. Yahukimo regency is a Lukas stronghold.

After vandalizing the court building, about 80 of Lukas' supporters proceeded to the Home Ministry offices in Central Jakarta to continue their protest.

Papua held its first direct gubernatorial election on March 10 after it had been postponed twice for political reasons.

The election was contested by five tickets fighting for the votes of the 1.4 million registered electors in the province's 20 regencies and mayoralties.

The Lukas-Arobi ticket was nominated by four parties while the Barnabas-Alex ticket was supported by five parties. In the March 10 election, the Barnabas-Alex ticket garnered 354,763 of the more than 1.1 million valid votes while the Lukas-Arobi pairing came second with 333,629 votes.

The Lukas-Arobi camp challenged the results in the Jayapura High Court and then appealed to the Supreme Court, accusing the Barnabas-Alex ticket of tampering with 17,000 ballots in Kurima district, Yahukimo regency.