Police summon eight Freeport workers

The police in Mimika, Papua, have summoned at least eight workers of Indonesian gold and copper producer PT Freeport Indonesia in connection with last month’s landslide at its Grasberg open pit mine in Tembagapura.

Four victims of the landslide – Abdullah Mar, Engelbertus Rumere, Saaf Sumargun and Sucipto – and another four workers, Nur Hadi, Yuda Setiawan Nasution, Fredrick Kulalo and Idris, who were working at the site when landslide occurred, were summoned by the police as witnesses.

“We are going to question total nine witnesses, but one witness, Suprapto, has not fulfilled the summons as he is on leave and out of station, Mimika police’ s criminal investigation chief Insp. Nur Bhakti said in Timika on Tuesday.

According to Nur Bhakti, the questioning of Freeport workers is another step after issuing summons to them last month. Until this day, their status is still as witnesses.

The fatal landslide, which occurred on October 9, killed four employees. Four others are still missing but they are presumed dead.

The government has already dispatched an investigation team to Papua to probe the causes of the accident.

Grasberg produced 1.13 million tons of copper concentrate and around 2.2 million ounces of gold in the first nine months of 2003.

U.S.-based Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX), PT Freeport's parent company, said it expects to lose around 10% of its projected 2003 sales volume of 1.4 billion pounds of copper and 2.6 million ounces of gold due to the partial closure.

Daily copper-ore production has been slashed to 160,000-180,000 metric tons from 250,000 metric tons. (*)