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he Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said on Saturday that the National Police'€™s counter-terrorism unit, Densus 88, had committed a number of human rights violations in relation to the death of Siyono, a terrorist suspect.

On March 8, Siyono was apprehended by three men, suspected to be Densus 88 members, after he had performed Maghrib prayers in a mosque close to his home in Klaten, Central Java. After a four-day interval, his body, showing signs of physical abuse, was sent home from Bhayangkara Police Hospital in Jakarta.

'€œAfter Siyono'€™s death, Kontras conducted a string of investigations, by interviewing his family, and examining the Densus 88 operation against a number of regulations, including KUHAP [the Criminal Law Procedures Code], Indonesian human rights law and a National Police regulation on Densus 88,'€ said Kontras civil and political rights division member, Satrio Wirataru.

The investigation, Satrio said, found that the counterterrorism unit had neither processed an arrest warrant prior to Siyono'€™s arrest nor a police dossier afterward.

Satrio said that Densus 88 was obliged to produce those documents, as stipulated by Article 18 of KUHAP and Article 9 of the 2011 National Police Chief Regulation on counterterrorism law procedures.

'€œIt is very inappropriate that the Densus 88, as a special unit under the National Police, breached its own regulations by failing to create the dossier,'€ Satrio said.

The Kontras investigation also revealed that it was not the first time the counterterrorism unit had failed to process dossiers when conducting an operation. '€œThis has happened before, when Densus 88 interrogated two men for alleged involvement in terrorism in Solo in December last year,'€ Satrio, who conducted the investigation, said.

Kontras also found that Siyono'€™s father, Marso, was asked by the police to sign a letter that prohibited Siyono'€™s family from challenging anything related to his death in court. This violated Article 17 of the 1999 Law on human rights, which stipulates that everybody has the right to seek justice in criminal, civil or maladministration cases in court, Satrio said

Kontras also accused the police of torturing the suspect during the interrogation. '€œThis was revealed when Kontras interviewed Siyono'€™s family about the state of his body after it was returned by the National Police,'€ Satrio said.

The family said Siyono'€™s body had bruising to the face and legs, the nose was broken and the head was covered in blood.

Earlier, National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan said that an autopsy on Siyono'€™s body, conducted by the Bhayangkara hospital, showed that Siyono died from a brain hemorrhage as a result of being hit by a blunt instrument, after he became embroiled in a fight with a Densus 88 officer.

Anton said that Siyono was in a car with a driver and only one Densus 88 officer guarding him.

'€œIt is hard to believe that Siyono died from a blow by a blunt object, given the fact that Siyono'€™s body was covered in wounds when it was received by his family,'€ Satrio said.

Siyono was arrested by Densus 88 on suspicion of being the leader of Neo Jamaah Islamiyah (Neo JI).

Police said he knew the location of Neo JI arms caches, which mainly contain weapons inherited from groups involved in the Bali bombing. (mos)