Court decision over Newmont's pre-trial charge against police cancelled

The Supreme Court has decided to cancel the South Jakarta district court's verdict over Newmont Minahasa Raya's (NMR) pre-trial charge against the police, a source told Koran Tempo daily.

The newspaper said that a supreme judge panel comprising of the chief of the Supreme Court Bagir Manan and members Mariana Sutadi and Paulus Effendi Lotulung accepted the police's appeal against the pre-trial decision on Tuesday.

NMR filed a pre-trial suit last year against the Jakarta police chief over the arrest of several of the company's executives for alleged environmental violation by the company.

The South Jakarta district court issued a verdict in favor of NMR and ordered the police to immediately release the executives comprising of Newmont president director Richard Ness and the company's other four top officials. But the police later appealed to the Supreme Court.

The office of the state minister of environment filed a lawsuit early this week against NMR for causing a serious environmental damages in the sea around the company's submarine mineral waste disposal in the Buyat bay, located near its mining site in Minahasa, North Sulawesi.(*)