Trial of Pole charged over Papua separatist links to start Monday

JAKARTA: A Polish man who faces a 15-year prison sentence if convicted for alleged links to Papuan separatists will appear in court Monday for the start of his trial, an Indonesian official said.

Jakub Fabian Skrzypski was detained and charged in August for intending to film an arms deal between rebels in Indonesia’s restive province of Papua, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said Saturday.

The trial will be held in Wamena where Skrzypski was arrested, and he is expected to appear in court, Ricarda Arsenius, a spokesman for the town’s prosecutor office, said.

“The indictment will be read out on Monday”, Arsenius told AFP.

Skrzypski and three Indonesians have been charged with a range of crimes under Indonesia’s criminal code, including a plot to overthrow the government. Police said they had confiscated from the group more than 130 rounds of ammunition and documents detailing the struggle of the Free Papua Movement.

Skrzypski’s lawyer said the Pole denied any wrongdoing.

Indonesian authorities are sensitive about Papua, which has been the scene of a simmering separatist movement since it was annexed by Indonesia in the late 1960s through a UN-backed referendum considered a sham by some historians.

The region, one of Indonesia’s poorest, has experienced a string of attacks on civilians with the most recent one earlier this month. At least 16 employees of a state-owned company, who were building bridges in a major infrastructure push for the impoverished region, were killed by separatist rebels last week.