Jayapura, Jubi – Head of the Papua Office of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM Papua) Frits Ramandey said the Makassar Human Rights Court’s decision to acquit the defendant of the Bloody Paniai case, Maj. Inf. Ret. Isak Sattu was a bad precedent for law enforcement in gross human rights violations in Indonesia, especially in Papua.
On December 8, 2022, the Makassar Human Rights Court handed down a verdict stating that Isak Sattu was not proven guilty of committing gross human rights violations. The panel of judges acquitted him of all charges because the element of command responsibility was not proven. Of the five judges in the case, two judges expressed dissenting opinions on the acquittal.
Ramandey said if human rights cases were not resolved properly, they would be subject to politics. He was also worried that the result of the Bloody Paniai trial would make the Papuan people increasingly distrust the state in resolving cases of human rights violations in Papua, and start taking the matter into their own hands.
According to Ramandey, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) must immediately use its authority to reinvestigate the case. Komnas HAM had a list of names of persons in command in the Bloody Paniai incident, and those names could be summoned by the AGO investigators.
“Summon the commander of Task Force, the police chief, and the commander of the Military District Command at that time. We have those names within the documents of our ad hoc team,” he said. (*)
