Indonesian police have arrested another two suspects for the murders of three humanitarian workers and a resident in the violence-plagued province of Aceh, a police spokesman said Monday.
National police spokesman Brigadier General Saleh Saaf said two civilians were arrested in North Aceh on Sunday night, four days after police detained a first suspect.
"They are being questioned at Aceh police headquarters as suspects in murder," Saaf told AFP, declining to name the pair.
Three field workers from the Danish-funded Rehabilitation Action for Torture Victims in Aceh (RATA) and a village resident were kidnapped, tied up and shot dead on December 6.
Their attackers have been identified as government informers, who were accompanied by armed men suspected of being soldiers.
A fourth RATA worker who escaped the execution has recounted how the killers consulted with uniformed military officers at army command posts in North Aceh before taking them to a forest clearing and shooting them in the head.
A survivor, Nazaruddin (eds: one name), 22, escaped by untying his hands and running through tall grass as the killers shot at him from behind.
Aceh Police chief Brigadier General Chaerul R. Rasyidi told the Jakarta Post newspaper on Friday that police had also arrested three security personnel over the RATA killings.
The suspect arrested last week was Ampon Thayeb, a man identified by Nazaruddin as a known government informant who appeared to be leading the squad of killers.
Saaf described Thayeb as "an armed civilian."
The mineral-rich province on the northwestern tip of Sumatra Island has been the seat of a separatist guerrilla war and brutal military crackdowns since the 1970s.
More than 800 people have died this year in violence related to clashes between guerrilla fighters from the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and government troops.
Jakarta has ruled out independence for Aceh but pledged broad autonomy -- JAKARTA (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
