Prosecutors get Newmont case from police: Report
Thursday, March 31 2005 - 01:43 AM WIB
A government-commissioned probe had concluded last year that sediment in Buyat Bay in the far north of Sulawesi island, near a gold mine run by subsidiary PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, had significant levels of arsenic and mercury contaminating the food chain and causing health problems for people there.
"Police have submitted suspects and evidence to prosecutors at the North Sulawesi office yesterday," prosecutor Robert Ilat told Reuters via telephone from provincial capital Manado.
"We will try to hand it over to the court as soon as possible."
Newmont, the world's largest gold miner, has denied all the allegations and vowed to aggressively defend six employees -- an Australian, two Americans and three Indonesians -- and the local unit over the issue.
Five of the six officials were held for more than a month late last year.
An Indonesia Supreme Court ruling earlier this month allowed the criminal investigation to proceed, and overturned a district court ruling saying the detentions were illegal.
Newmont's lawyer, Luhut Pangaribuan, confirmed the final handover to the North Sulawesi prosecutors office.
"We've requested experts' testimony to the prosecutors in order to prove whether a pollution occurred or not," said Pangaribuan.
Newmont has said it was vindicated by studies -- one by the Indonesian government and another by the World Health Organisation -- that concluded the bay was not polluted.
The company said it had released 33 tonnes of mercury into the bay and atmosphere over 4-½ years but that the toxic emissions were not at levels harmful to people or the environment, and were in line with Indonesian regulations.
The Sulawesi gold mine, 2,200 km (1,400 miles) northeast of Jakarta, was closed last August due to depleted reserves and the company had been carrying out reclamation work. The accusations relate to when the mine was operational.
Charges of breaching environmental regulations carry jail terms of up to 15 years in Indonesia if people are proved to have died or become seriously ill as a result of pollution, police say.
Indonesia's Environment Ministry has also filed a $133.7 million civil suit against the company.
Despite having some tough regulations on the books, Indonesia often comes under fire from environmental organisations as being too soft in practice on problems caused by mining and timber operations in the resource-rich country.
Miners meanwhile complain it is getting harder to do business in Indonesia's outlying regions. Investment in mining has slumped since the mid 1990s because of vague regulations, competition from illegal mining and environmental rules. (*)