The leader of the seven-Papuans' group - who led an attack on three employees of US mining company Freeport, at one of the latter's owned Grasberg gold and copper mines near the town of Timika, in Indonesia on August 31st 2002 - Antonius Wamang, was convicted to life in prison on Tuesday by the Jakarta Central Court on charges of first degree murder. The three employees were two American citizens working as schoolteachers, 71-year-old Edwin Leon Burgen and 44-year-old Ricky Lyn Spier and an Indonesian one, their assistant and translator Francis Xavier Bambang Riwanto.

The prosecutors initially requested only 20 years of jail for the leader, yet the three-man judiciary chose the heavier sentence, since Wamang displayed no remorse-related feelings for what was considered to be a breach of human rights laws.

Two of the remaining six-defendant group received seven years in jail for charges of involvement in the ambush, while the other four, which also included a protestant prelate, received only 18 months in jail on the same charges.

According to prosecutors, Wamang was the one who established the group in order to conduct a sort of sabotage on Freeport's operations in the area, which allegedly are protected by a system of security payments conducted by the military, a mission whose ultimate goal was the murder of the three.

"This court is a joke", Wamang defiantly complained in his native language, upon hearing the verdict released by the Indonesian court, highlighting that such a decision was biased, since it was based upon political reasons. He, as well as the other six, had been accompanied and supported by many Papuan followers, once the case was transferred from Papua to Indonesia on security reasons, who agree upon the alleged separatist and nationalist objectives of the seven against Indonesian presence in their country.

On the other hand, those who criticized the entire case highlight the fact that such developments are but sand in the eyes for the more gullible ones, given that the military department has actually been involved in the murders. Several pieces of evidence point towards the fact that some members of the Kopassus, the name given to the Special Forces, were the ones who led the attacks.