Police detain four Newmont staffers: Report

Four Newmont Mining Corp. employees at its Indonesian subsidiary have been detained by police after being questioned about pollution claims by local residents, a spokesman for the global mining company said on Wednesday.

"We're deeply concerned about their decision to detain the employees. It was not necessary. We have been cooperating," spokesman Doug Hock was quoted by Reuters as saying.

"They were brought in for questioning, which lasts all day. And then at the end of the day they were presented with letters saying 'we want to detain you,'" Hock said.

Local residents have claimed that waste from the Minahasa gold mine on Sulawesi Island has polluted a bay. Emotions were heightened when a baby in the town died this summer, Hock said.

Scientists hired by the company and government officials sampled water taken from the same source, but ended up with very different results.

"Ours came back normal. Theirs came back higher in mercury and arsenic than we've ever seen," Hock said.

The mine was closed in August and the company has been carrying out normal reclamation work.

Three of the staffers are Indonesian and the other, mine general manager Bill Long, is American.

The detentions come a week before Newmont and other gold miners address the Denver Gold Group show where companies and investors get together. "It will be addressed," Hock said, referring to Newmont's problems in Indonesia.(*)